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In the summer of 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 agonizing days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or using a headscarf.

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

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided 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 Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was finally permitted to get on 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 deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity 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 vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against 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 listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system 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 stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|