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

But the update her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find safety in exile, but soon found they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved 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 taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

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

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

Parental Pressure

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 family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some police 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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for 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 remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the police and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up 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 opportunity again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

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 claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and heritage. 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 returning home from college in another part of China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in diaspora. "We have 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 sense of safety at finding a place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission 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 put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of 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 diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|