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

In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News 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 promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Parental Pressure

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

Her parents had a chilling 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 pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood 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 used to play with the animals and poultry. 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 going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you employment and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the community in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online 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 targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine 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 huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|