fled and resigned, soon after president gotabaya fled and resigned, the then prime minister, ranil wickremesinghethe new president. a few weeks later, the former president returned to the country. he now lives in a government bungalow, and many members of his cabinet are back at the parliament. in the recent months, the scale of anti—government protests has come down. but the public discontent is still palpable. what this government has done is that the protests have been met by repression, so that repression has also silenced certain communities. there is fear in terms of what it may entail by protesting. there are continuous arrests, there's surveillance, there are people who are called in for questioning. so the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to protest is under immense threat in sri lanka. we've been litigating in the public interest for the last 25 years. just in the last year, the new faces that come to court to challenge has been quite remarkable. some of the protesters have been arrested under a controversial law aimed at preventing terrorism. the government is now go