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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like attending a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety in exile, but quickly found they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and felt free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the police and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Prior to my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the community in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being urged to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|