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The almost-forgotten – and still unpunished – ministerial attack on journalists at Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation

The 2007 assault on the news director of the state-owned Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation by Mervyn Silva, and the stalling of the investigation and case, remains a blot on media freedom during and after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime

By Bingun Menaka Gamage
An illustration of TV screens stacked one on top of the other on wooden shelves. The screens are playing stills from Sri Lank
A series of stills from live coverage of Sri Lanka Labour Minister Mervyn Silva’s violent intrusion into the state-owned television station Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, where he assaulted the news director T M G Chandrasekara. The stalling of the investigation and case remains a blot on media freedom during and after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime.
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This story is published in collaboration with the Free Media Movement of Sri Lanka, part of a series for Black January, which commemorates crimes against Sri Lanka's journalists. It has been translated and edited from Sinhala, with updates on T M G Chandrasekara’s case.

“This morning, a group of thugs led by Mervyn Silva forcibly entered the [Sri Lanka Rupavani Corporation] news division and assaulted News Director T M G Chandrasekara.” 

On 27 December 2007, this was the breaking news reported by every television channel in Sri Lanka, referring to the violent intrusion into the state-owned television broadcaster, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), by a group led by Mervyn Silva, then the labour minister. 

At the time, the United People’s Freedom Alliance coalition government, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa as president, had been in power for just over three years. Silva’s intrusion into the premises of Rupavahini, and the chaos that ensued, was broadcast live across all private television networks. The assault on Chandrasekara sparked nationwide outrage. Yet while this event was widely discussed during the early years of Rajapaksa’s first term, public discourse surrounding it had significantly diminished by the time his second term began in 2010.