The Activist Who Challenged China and Achieved Her Husband's Release

In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There 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 update her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but soon discovered they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, helping to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best 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 extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

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

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

Parental Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family 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 disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just pretended 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 life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs 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 caring for 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 world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their religion and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning 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 short window of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|