Featured Artist - Zargana

Zargana (Tweezers) is a leading comedian, poet and filmmaker in Burma whose fierce criticisms of the Burmese military government have made him a regular political prisoner. As the country’s most popular satirists, he has frequently used his talent to concoct double entendres to highlight the failures of the government. He was arrested in 1988for participating in a nationwide uprising and was in and out of prison for the next several years until his eventual release in 1994. Zargana was then forbidden from performing on stage but allowed to participate in video productions, working as a producer, director, scriptwriter and actor. In 2007, he was again arrested for participating in the on-going government protests.

Zargana was again arrested on June 4, 2008 for his private relief efforts to deliver aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis. Media reports say officials searched his home, seized his computer and donations for cyclone survivors. Also seized were three CD which contained film footage of the cyclone's devastation, the wedding of junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe's youngest daughter and Rambo 4 in which Sylvester Stallone's character battles the Burmese government. Media reports also say officials were outraged after mocking an article in a state-run newspaper in which it was said cyclone survivors could exist in what they could scavenge in the country side rather than on chocolate bars from Western aid groups.