🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find security in exile, but soon realized they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee 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 Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

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

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the risks.

Parental Pressure

Shortly 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 relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the police 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 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 killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "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 house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps 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 tell lies or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to force other countries to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged 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 significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|