🔗 Share this article

In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board 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 detained and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to produce 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 containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape 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 Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, despite the consequences.

Family Interference

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

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, '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. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, 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 authorities and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Prior to 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 Twitter. 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 tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different 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 animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

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

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you employment and this good 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 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 perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher 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 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, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the phone 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 extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of 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 huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|