Rangoon, Nov. 22: Secret courts in Burma have sentenced a popular comedian and a hip-hop star to hefty jail terms as the military regime of that country continues to crack down on dissidents.

Comedian Zargana, detained in June for criticising the government''s slow response to Cyclone Nargis in interviews with foreign news groups, was sentenced to 45 years in jail.

A court inside Rangoon''s notorious Insein prison convicted Zargana, an outspoken satirist who has already been jailed four times, of violating the Electronics Act.