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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but soon found they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and enjoyed able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually 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 realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Interference

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

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the police 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. 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 pushed 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 elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown 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 choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. 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 wed and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect 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 prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|