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In July 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 agonizing days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Contact anyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or using a headscarf.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but soon realized they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting 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 apply for a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was finally allowed 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 confirmed when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

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

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved 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 Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey 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 religion and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other countries to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated 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 social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred 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 the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|