Foreign Correspondent: Sept 15

This week Foreign Correspondent is in Sri Lanka where South Asia correspondent Avani Dias is charting the recent unrest.

For Sri Lanka’s protest movement, it felt like victory. After months of escalating actions, protestors stormed the Presidential palace and occupied its grounds. Some even partied in the pool and stretched out in the president’s four-poster bed.

That evening, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and later resigned.

25-year-old IT technician, Wimukthi Ranasinghe, was one of the protestors caught up in the day’s excitement. He livestreamed from inside the palace, picking up millions of followers worldwide.

Today, Wimukthi is on bail, facing charges of inciting violence that could land him in jail.

“I’m worried about what’ll happen to him in the future,” says his mother. “When we hear all these horror stories about what’s happening to people, we’ve told him he can’t even go to the local shop now on his own.”

Many protestors are now living in fear.

Under the new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, there’s been a crackdown on protest action. Some of the movement’s leaders have gone into hiding. Others have been charged and detained under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act.

For months, South Asia correspondent Avani Dias, has been charting the unrest in Sri Lanka. Now, she’s captured the crackdown in full swing.

She meets leaders in hiding from police, following them as they re-emerge and take the risk of organising fresh protests.

One is the defiant student leader, Wasanthe Mudalige, who plays cat-and-mouse with the police.

“The person who has claimed the throne does not have the mandate of the people,” he claims. “The police are doing this because they’re scared.”

Dias spends time with families grappling with how to protect their children caught up in the crackdown.

As tensions in Colombo rise and the police presence grows, Dias interviews the new president, Wickremesinghe.

“We arrest people who broke the law,” says the 45-year-veteran politician and former lawyer. “Everything has been done legally.”

The next day Dias and her crew are stopped and searched twice by authorities, on the hunt for protest leaders like Wasantha.

As major protests unfold, Dias captures incredible scenes as police and protestors clash.

No Surrender takes viewers inside the movement that brought down one president and isn’t stopping now.

8pm Thursday on ABC.