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In July 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 stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but soon realized they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Costly 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 let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

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

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

Parental Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some police 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 negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the authorities and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family 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 school holidays cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

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