🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Call anyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using 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 exile, but quickly discovered they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository 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 previous arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family 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 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 acted 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before 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 reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university 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 choice 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 saw he was very honest 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 different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have 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 sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

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 immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert 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 significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|