The Activist Who Challenged China and Achieved Her Spouse's Release

In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told 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 Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find security in exile, but soon discovered they were wrong.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," she stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media 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 book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally permitted 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," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

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

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly 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 jailed for several 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 help you,'" she stated. "I realized 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. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public 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 truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. 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 rural areas 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 home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

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

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart 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 school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population 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 place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to review 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 significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|