evidence: Balangoda Kassaba Thero, a 30-year-old Buddhist monk who was on a Satyagraha campaign during the Aragalaya protests, too, is facing charges. "I was fighting for people’s rights and they arrested me for that. Buddhism preaches peace. But they say even a monk is wrong, although our protests were peaceful," said Kassaba, sipping a cup of coffee at a Colombo cafe. He said that even after Aragalaya, Sri Lankans did not have the freedom to express themselves. "To protest and question the government is our fundamental right. But we are being harassed for it," he said. [...] Aragalaya changed the nature of political protests in Sri Lanka as it helped breach the divide between the Sinhala-majority south and the Tamil-dominated north. People in the south who never bothered to oppose the rulers did not hesitate to question the politicians this time about their broken promises. "During Aragalaya, everyone, including the ultra left and the far right and even those without any political ideology came together," said Chameera Dedduwage, a digital media strategist who works for a leading advertising company in Colombo. [...] Dedduwage said the only change that Aragalaya brought was to Sri Lanka’s political leadership. "Wickremesinghe is someone who is preferred by the upper echelons of the society in Colombo. Apart from that, there is no big change," he said. "The protesters have gone back to look after their own lives."