🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she answered a desperately anticipated 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 difficult.

But the update her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can help me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or using a headscarf.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find safety in exile, but soon realized they were wrong.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, despite the consequences.

Parental Interference

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "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 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. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been determined 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 social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct 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 animals 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 beautiful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People 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 provided you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "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 realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in diaspora. "We have 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 relief at finding a place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to force other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged 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 significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|