🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He told her 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 help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," she explained.

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

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally 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," she said. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware 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 risks.

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several 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 help 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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the authorities 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 tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is tackling extremism 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 able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They wanted 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 finally decided to depart China after returning home from university in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help 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 duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|