Fabricated news graphic pushes claim Sri Lankan official supported arrested councillors
- Published on January 26, 2026 at 09:13
- 2 min read
- By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka
After five Sri Lankan councillors were arrested for disrupting a special meeting of the Galle Municipal Council in December 2025, a mocked-up news graphic was shared in posts falsely claiming opposition politician Rohini Kumari Wijerathna said the councillors' actions were justified. Wijerathna told AFP she made no such remarks, and the news outlet whose logo appears on the purported graphic said it was fake.
"The officials were drenched in water due to their own mistakes. If they had acted as our members advised, this would not have happened -- says Rohini Kavirathna," reads Sinhala-language text superimposed on a Facebook graphic shared on December 30, 2025, using the politician's family name.
The graphic bears the logo of Sri Lankan media outlet Ada Derana, and features a photo of Rohini Kumari Wijerathna next to an image from a contentious meeting of the Galle municipal council (archived link).
Local media reported that Sri Lankan police arrested five opposition members of the body for allegedly assaulting the council's secretary and other officials on December 30, during a dispute about the legality of the previous budget approval (archived link).
Two of the arrested members belonged to Wijerathna's Samagi Jana Balawegaya party, the largest opposition coalition in Sri Lanka's parliament. They were later released on bail.
The purported news graphic was also shared elsewhere in similar Facebook posts.
"This woman is crazy. Do government officials need to work according to you? That was during your time," read a comment on one of the posts.
Another said: "This foolish woman is trying to justify it. Utterly disgusting."
But there have been no official reports of Wijerathna justifying the disruption to the council meeting.
"I have not made any remarks on this matter," Wijerathna told AFP by phone on January 26.
The opposition politician also branded the graphic as "fake" on her Facebook page (archived link).
The news editor of Ada Derana's Sinhala website, Poornima Ayuwardana, separately told AFP on January 22 that their template was used to create the false graphic.
"This is a fake. The post uses our template, but not the font. We have a font specifically made for us, which is not available outside," said Ayuwardana.
The graphic appears to have been mocked up by combining a post from Ada Derana's Sinhala Facebook page and a mirrored photo from Wijerathna's Facebook page (archived here and here).
AFP has previously debunked other false posts that shared fabricated news graphics.
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