The Woman Who Challenged China and Achieved Her Spouse's Liberty

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris shared was more alarming. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but soon realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, helping to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting 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 apply for a visa for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After 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 said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents 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 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 consequences.

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off 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 social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured 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 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 type of chance again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

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

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs 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 wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from university in another part of 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 was aware we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language 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 short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity 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 Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to target the family members of other targets.

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

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|