🔗 Share this article

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. It had been four painful 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 shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When 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 set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims 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 dread most: challenge China, regardless of the consequences.

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several 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,'" she explained. "I knew 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed 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 Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood 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 grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the home 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 mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured 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."

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 Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help 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 duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his deportation 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 begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to review 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|