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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find safety in exile, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she stated.

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

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided 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 Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was finally 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 recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested 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 arrival in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off 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 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing 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.

"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 these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different 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'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance 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 school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on religious freedoms 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 get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared 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 background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering 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 immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after 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, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|