The Wife Who Challenged China and Secured Her Husband's Liberty

In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to everyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally allowed to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

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

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

Family Pressure

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 family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she explained. "I realized 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 safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been determined 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 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 die. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas 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 opportunity again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

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

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting 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 limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|