🔗 Share this article

In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. 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 taken into custody and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "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," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Shortly 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 several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, '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 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 softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Prior to 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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue 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 early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy 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 opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith 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 issue in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced 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 meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to force other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert 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 support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|