The Woman Who Stood Up to China and Secured Her Spouse's Freedom

In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find safety in exile, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee 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 whole family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents 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 going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I realized there must be some authorities 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. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off 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 Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

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

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling 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 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 issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from university 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 was aware we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. 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|