The Woman Who Challenged China and Won Her Husband's Liberty

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

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

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was finally allowed to get on 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 Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed 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: defy China, despite the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, 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 going back to China.

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

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the police and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Prior to 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 save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to 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 transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing 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 made the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

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 wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the community in exile. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect 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 prominent force in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to review 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 huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|