Adil Tuniyaz is a well-known Uyghur poet, reporter at the state-run People’s Radio, and author of the books Questions for an Apple and Manifesto for Universal Poetry. Tuniyaz and his wife, Nezire Muhammad Salih, were both arrested in December 2017. Their eldest son, Imran (19 years old), was also arrested. It is believed that their three younger children have been placed in state-run orphanages for Uyghur youth whose guardians have been detained. Adil’s father-in-law, the well known Uyghur scholar Muhammad Salih Hajim, died in a re-education camp in Urumqi in January 2018.
A Chinese officer at a prison in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture’s Miquan county, where another relative is being held, informed family members in February 2018 that they “shouldn’t hold out any hope for Nezire and Adil” because of the seriousness of the accusations against them.
I have no flavor to me
Adil Tuniyaz
Sorrows are my salt
I can’t say what my life lacks
Sometimes there’s no need for me,
sometimes no need for my shadow
Translation by Joshua L. Freeman
