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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 got 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 revealed was more alarming. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to everyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but soon found 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," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he believed was linked 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 apply for a visa for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears 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 pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Family Pressure

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

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she explained. "I knew 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the police and had been resolved 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 reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

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 countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "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 farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage 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 believe in us, we gave you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from university in Eastern 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 was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest 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 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the family members of other targets.

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

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|