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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 answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find security in exile, but soon found they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates 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 whole family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says 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: challenge China, despite the consequences.

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned 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. 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 persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the authorities 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 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 tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling 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 able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days 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 similar language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue 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 advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|