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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 long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence 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 province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

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

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control 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 released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained 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 "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, despite the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received 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 jailed for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she explained. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they insisted 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 stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

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

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

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away 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 different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

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 deportation 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 assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop 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|