The Activist Who Defied China and Secured Her Spouse's Liberty

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

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

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like going to a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but quickly realized they were wrong.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some police there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing 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 been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Prior to my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

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

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from college in another part of 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 together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. 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 wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared 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 being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to force other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

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 opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by human rights groups. 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|