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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home 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 information her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call anyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose 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 mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After 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 set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the risks.

Parental Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated 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 disturbing 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 insisted 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 softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the authorities and had been determined 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 Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made 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 realized he was very honest and shy, 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."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture 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 overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone 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 contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged to review 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 political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|