Past Cases

Background

Maung Thura (known publicly as Zarganar), is a widely celebrated Burmese comedian, poet, actor and director. He is regarded as Myanmar’s most famous satirist and an outspoken critic of the military regime. 

Fearless in his activism, Zarangar was first arrested during the failed 1988 pro-democracy movement, where he made fun of the government. He was subsequently imprisoned for four years after impersonating General Saw Maung in front of a crowd of several thousand at the Yankin Teacher’s Training College Stadium in Rangoon on May 19, 1990. Upon his conviction, Zarganar was held in solitary confinement at Insein Prison, where he began writing poetry. After his release, he was banned from performing in public.

On September 25, 2007, he was arrested for his support of the monks demonstrating in Rangoon. He was released from detention on October 18, 2007.

In 2008 he was arrested again for speaking with international media to raise awareness of a cyclone that killed nearly 140,000 people and left millions homeless. For this, he was sentenced to a combined 59 years in prison. In February 2009, the sentences were commuted by 24 years, leaving him to serve 35 years. He collapsed in the Myitkyina prison in late April 2009, reportedly suffering from heart problems, jaundice, and a stomach ulcer.

Zarganar was released in a mass amnesty for political prisoners in October 2011.

There were concerns, however, that his release is conditional. In an interview with the BBC he said, “If I do something wrong they will send me back. I’m not happy today because there are so many of my friends still in prison.”

Despite being detained on numerous occasions for his peaceful activism, Zarganar remained a fierce critic of the military regime. Even in the midst of a peace process that many hoped would signal Myanmar’s peaceful transition to democracy, Zarganar remained skeptical of the military’s motivations, noting in a 2014 interview that “Soldiers solve all their problems with the gun, not at a round table”.

Zarganar received PEN Canada’s One Humanity Award in 2008. His poetry has been published in the PEN International anthology This Prison Where I Live.