The Activist Who Challenged China and Won Her Husband'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. There had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

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

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment 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 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in exile, but quickly discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were confirmed 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 political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family 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 message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative 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 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

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

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

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal 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 follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage 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 believe in us, we gave you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to move 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 shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing 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 growing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

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 opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|