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In the summer of 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 communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find security in exile, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, 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 high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising 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 return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some authorities 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 life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in open 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 caring for 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 deported to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

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 elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

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

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', 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 religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go abroad 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 honest and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility 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 global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition 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 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 huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|