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Free expression in Zimbabwe, especially through art, is as likely to arouse political oppression and persecution as liberal thought and democratic debate.

Owen Maseko, an artist in Zimbabwe’s second largest city of Bulawayo, is particularly aware of the intellectual restrictions placed on his countrymen. Early this year, Maseko opened an exhibition that depicted the Gukurahundi Massacres, which were carried out by Robert Mugabe’s troops against the Ndebele tribe between 1983 and 1986. Over 20,000 people were killed. Maseko’s exhibition was only open to the public for a few hours; he was charged with “inciting violence” and arrested on March 26, 2010.

“For the Gukurahundi Massacres, it has always been an issue,” says Maseko about his controversial exhibition. “Being Ndebele, I just decided that I have to present these atrocities as an artistic impression of what happened.”

Maseko is one of dozens of artists who have been persecuted for depicting controversial issues over the last few decades in Zimbabwe. But his arrest and trial come during a particularly tumultuous period in recent Zimbabwean history, where freedom of expression is slowly being recognized as a right of dissidents, journalists, and especially artists.

Maseko’s arrest in late-March of 2010 was a critical example of the extent to which the government deals with dissenting voices. But unlike most routine arrests, which often go unnoticed, detaining Maseko caused some considerable discomfort for the ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe’s ruling party. After opening his exhibit of the Gukurahundi Massacres, Maseko’s arrest on charges of “inciting violence” sparked debate on an issue so sensitive that the government had to think carefully before making any moves.

Maseko’s arrest was a thorn in the side of the ZANU-PF government – which maintains a “detain and intimidate” strategy for silencing dissidents – because it touched on the “Silent Genocide.” Also known as the Gukurahundi Massacres, Maseko attempted to raise awareness of the slaughter of more than 20,000 Zimbabweans between 1983 and 1986 by ZANU-PF’s (Robert Mugabe’s) troops in the 5th Brigade. Prior to the massacres, the 5th Brigade, it is now known, had received training in North Korea. Recently, there has been a boycott against the Zimbabwean government’s plans to host North Korea’s national soccer team ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Leading up to his arrest on March 26, Maseko was organizing and promoting a show at Bulawayo’s National Art Gallery. His exhibition – a combination of installations, paintings, and graffiti – was an artist’s account of the Gukurahundi Massacres. Maseko’s exhibition was visible from outside the gallery’s windows. This meant that it was in full view of people walking along the adjacent street.

“I looked at it as a kind of artistic approach to the exhibition, not a political one,” says Maseko. He maintains that he was neither calling for protests or even formal recognition of the Gukurahundi Massacres; he just wanted to stimulate discussion and thought. “I did not do the exhibition to get popular or to get publicity or to get arrested. That’s the last thing I would ever do.”

Being arrested has frustrated Maseko, especially because it was his people that were targeted by Mugabe’s troops during the massacres. “My exhibition didn’t create Gukurahundi. It just presented an artistic impression of what happened in history,” Maseko says. “But unfortunately it is bad Zimbabwean history.”

By typical standards of freedom of speech in Zimbabwe, Owen Maseko went too far.

Jim McKinnon, Oxfam Canada’s Regional Manager for Southern Africa was in Bulawayo at the time. He visited the exhibition before it was shut down. “It wasn’t a big secret,” he says. “It definitely pushed the bounds. It was very graphic.”

“I wasn’t shocked,” McKinnon adds about Maseko’s arrest. Although the arrest did not come as a surprise to him, he believes Maseko’s stance was not too far-blown. “No, not at all. I think it showed that [the police] were confused.”

At the gallery, Maseko had three installations. The first literally hit viewers as they walked in the main door of the gallery; Maseko refers to the initial installation as the “first attack.” As viewers proceeded from the main box, in which the first installation was housed (which he called the “ballot box”), they were confronted on the far end of the gallery by a second installation, which addressed to the Unity Accord signing in 1987.