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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited 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 Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find safety in their new home, but soon found they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish 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 best friends, who worked in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would lead 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 unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family 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 disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just acted 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. '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 been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public 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 these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

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

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you jobs and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

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

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 Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children 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 relief at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

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