The attack and vandalism of the Sirasa Studio complex in Depanama

In the early hours of Tuesday the 6th of January the Sirasa studios in Pannipitiya were attacked and destroyed by a gang of thugs in two vans with the license plates removed. With the high security in the country, and the earlier notification to the Police of unidentified people loitering around, it does not take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that the law enforcement authorities were in some ways intimidated or bought off not to protect or investigate, and that some politician in Government was behind it as a gang would not perform such a brazen act without such patronage in the current security complex.

I have noted in this blog earlier that all the good our President does comes to naught when he by inaction effectively condones this behavior due to some personal concerns he has in vociferously denouncing this and other similar acts against the independence of the media.

It is time that the law be enforced if this country does not become the joke of the world and our pride in our nation is completely destroyed by those unpatriotic leaders in power. It is important when the government media engages in disinformation of mega proportions, that some kind of balance is shown by alternative media to give the viewing and listening public, another perspective other than the government viewpoint.

Today we lack leadership of integrity and the example of people acting with impunity is bad for not just the image of the country and also to the citizens at large to know that there is no security and protection of basic human rights we have come to expect as our rights. It is of the opinion of many in rural areas that there are two laws, one for the wealthy and the other for the poor and now this adds to the perception of total lawlessness.

It is amazing that the chief of police has not immediately taken charge to assure the public that all is well and he is fully in charge of the situation to give the public a level of confidence that the full force of the law will be utilized to bring the perpetrators to book. Nothing short of this will satisfy the people of this country that they can rely on the police to uphold the law.

I don’t know how this will pan out in the future and only hope that pressure will be brought to convince the very thick-skinned legislators that they must take action to protect private and public property from acts of vandalism.