🔗 Share this article

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

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

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

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and felt free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the consequences.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she explained. "I realized 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. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the authorities 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up 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 grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, 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 banned from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their religion and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of China to a increasing repression 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 maybe we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest 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."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty 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, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. 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 alert after being urged to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|