 Professional Background
Maung
Thura (‘Zargana’) is a comedian, poet, and opposition activist who was
arrested during the demonstrations in Burma that broke out in
late September 2007.
Current Status
Zargana
was arrested on September 25, 2007 for his support of the monks
demonstrating in the capital, Rangoon. He was released around October
18, 2007, however he was again arrested, this time for just a few hours, some days later. He remains under heavy surveillance and restriction, and the level of repression throughout the country remains dangerously high.
Case History
Zargana
spent several years in prison in the early 1990s for his opposition
activities. During that time he was taken up as a main case by the
Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN.
Maung Thura,
more commonly known by his nickname ‘Zargana,’ is Burma’s leading
comedian, popular for his political satires. Zargana revived the
traditional Burmese role of the court jester, who is the only person
allowed to criticize the leader. When he joined a traveling troupe of
comedians in 1982, Zargana was optimistic about the role of the comic,
saying, “If the government takes a wrong step in the morning, we can
criticize it at night…” For a while, the military authorities tolerated
him, and even on occasion invited him to perform for them. But as the
political climate deteriorated, the authorities lost patience and
attempts were made to silence him.
Zargana, whose pseudonym
means ‘tweezers,’ referring to his years spent training as a dentist,
was born in January 1962, the youngest son of writers Nan Nyunt Swe and
Daw Kyi Oo. From a young age he accompanied his parents on speaking
tours, and entertained people by giving performances and doing
impersonations. He went on to form a dance troupe and a drama group,
which both performed on national television, and between 1985 and 1988
he played lead roles in four films.
During the 1988 uprising,
Zargana gave speeches at the Rangoon General Hospital which attracted
large audiences and won rousing ovations. He quickly became a leading
voice of the student pro-democracy movement, although he never
officially joined a political party. His crowd-pulling ability was
second only to that of Aung San Suu Kyi, and his jokes were passed on
by word of mouth throughout Myanmar.
Zargana was first arrested
in October 1988 after making fun of the government, and freed six
months later. However, on May 19, 1990, he impersonated General Saw
Maung, former head of the military government, to a crowd of thousands
at the Yankin Teacher’s Training College Stadium in Rangoon. He was
arrested shortly afterwards, and sentenced to five years in prison. He
was held in solitary confinement in a tiny cell in Rangoon’s Insein
Prison, where he began writing poetry.
In prison, Zargana was
banned from reading and writing, so he scratched his poems on the floor
of his cell using a piece of pottery before committing them to memory.
These poems were only written down after his release.
After his
release in 1994, Zargana was banned from performing in public, but
continued to make tapes and videos which were strictly censored by the
authorities. In May 1996, after speaking out against censorship to a
foreign journalist, he was banned from performing his work altogether,
and stripped of his freedom to write and publish. He continues to defy
the authorities, spreading his jokes by word of mouth.
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