🔗 Share this article

In July 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. It 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 information her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, helping to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, 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 airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received 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 return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some police 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the police and had been resolved 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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

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 farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a growing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately 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 wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted 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 shown a willingness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop 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|