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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful 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 even worse. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find safety in their new home, but quickly discovered they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the consequences.

Family Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before 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 save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from college in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to determine.

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