4th May 2009
For Immediate Release

We would like to draw the attention of your readers – as well as yourselves as fellow journalists and writers – to the conditions under which the poet and comedian Zargana is forced to live in a Burmese jail.

He was convicted for doing something we would all consider normal – expressing an opinion about the government of his country. For this “offence” he was imprisoned for a term of thirty-five years. In prison he has developed heart problems, jaundice and a stomach ulcer. He has been transferred to a hospital, but to one that is not equipped to give him the care he requires for these complaints. In addition, he is denied the right to receive visits from his family, surely something we would expect any patient to enjoy and indeed, as moral support, an essential part of his medical treatment.

Anyone who wishes to offer support to this writer, entertainer and fellow human being should do so in the form of correspondence to the Embassy of Myanmar.

Dr. Nelson Wattie
PEN representative of the New Zealand Society of Authors

ENDS

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