by Rhiannon Ingle in Lad Bible, Sept 29, 2023 at 10:19 hrs BST
A British woman has been trapped in Sri Lanka for 13 months and is now left ‘out of hope’.
Kayleigh Fraser, 35, from St Andrews, was visiting the country to study botanical medicine and began sharing videos online of the ‘Aragalaya’ (‘Struggle’ in Sinhalese) protests.
Fraser, who had been living abroad for over a year, had her home on the South Asian island raided in August of last year by immigration officers claiming that she was visiting the country on an invalid visa.
The authorities later seized her passport and officials issued a deportation order upheld by Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court.
Fraser has since claimed that she has been left in fear of surrendering to the officials due to the threat of being unlawfully detained under the country’s anti-terror laws.
Such laws allow individuals to be detained for causing ‘religious, racial or communal disharmony’.
Back in 2022, Fraser supported protesters living in a ‘protest village’ in the capital city of Colombo and claims she was prosecuted for sharing footage of the events that reportedly led to the resignation of the country’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Nihal Thalduwa, a spokesperson for the Sri Lankan police, told the national newspaper, The Morning, last year that Fraser had shared ‘negative content’ on her Instagram account.
“It is not right that a foreigner is in our country and sharing such massive negative content. She is also not a journalist to cover the protests.” he said at the time.
Speaking to MailOnline, Fraser said: “I’m just existing, surviving out here, waiting for something to change. I have no options at all and I’m practically out of hope.
“Just ensuring I have somewhere to sleep and something to eat are the priority.”
She went on to explain that internet was now a ‘luxury’, before adding: “I’m incredibly thankful to have had decent access to this past month or so.
“I don’t recognise this as life – it’s existence. It feels like the entire world has abandoned me at the mercy of these madmen in power here.”
Fraser added: “I need some sort of assured safe passage through the British Government and their physical presence and assistance to safely board the plane and leave this island.
“I stood up for people who were brutally abused by those entrusted with their care. Then why am I sitting here rotting?”
Human rights lawyer, Kodituwakku Nagananda, who has been fighting Fraser’s case now for over a year, also told MailOnline: “Sri Lanka is a pseudo-democracy where nobody respects the sovereignty of the people and the rule of law.
“Kayleigh is an upright British national who was very much concerned with the blatant right violations. She used her social media pages to highlight these cases and brought them to the attention of the international community.
“And she was branded as a foreigner who brought the government of Sri Lanka into disrepute and was issued with an unjustified and unlawful deportation order denying her any right to defend herself.”
Later today (29 September) North East Fife MP, Wendy Chamberlain, is set to have a meeting with Foreign Office officials to get written reassurances from the Sri Lankan government that the Brit will be guaranteed safe passage out of the country, the outlet reports.
A spokesperson for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also said: “We are providing assistance to a British woman in Sri Lanka and are in contact with the local authorities.”
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