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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

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

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After 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 said. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 Facebook 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 abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "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 realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "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 disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|