The Wife 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 painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call everyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but soon realized they were mistaken.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and felt free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape 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 family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally permitted 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 recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

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

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just acted 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 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 hijabs forcibly removed in open by the police 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 caring for 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 reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, 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 relatives around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

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

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

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

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in diaspora. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|