Dear Hong Kong,

You once taught me that freedom was ordinary. Now, even love for you has become a crime. I miss you. But missing you is not the same as forgiving what has been done to you.

I am writing from 6,000 miles away, from the same planet, under the same sky. Geography tells us we are far apart, but politics tells us we are closer than ever. Close enough that your laws reach me. Distant enough that I can’t go home.

I can't return to you. Not because I stopped loving you, but because loving you has been criminalised.

I am a Hong Kong activist in exile. That is not a metaphor. It is a legal and political fact. I am one of thousands who have been forced out and hunted abroad, because Hong Kong is no longer a city that tolerates dissent. It is now a city ruled by fear.

I loved the Hong Kong that raised me with the idea that freedom was commonplace. Speaking up was expected rather than courageous. That the rule of law meant something real, not something that was printed on banners for investors while judges read from scripts that said otherwise. I loved a city where protest was a civic act, not a security threat. Where journalists were watchdogs, not defendants. Where being political did not mean preparing for prison.

That Hong Kong taught me who I am. It also taught me what I am now being punished for.

Since 2019, you have been systematically dismantled. Two million people marched peacefully against an extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kongers to be sent to China’s party-controlled legal system. Two million, nearly one in three people. That was not chaos, that was consent withdrawn.

The response was not dialogue. It was repression. Police violence became routine. Peaceful protesters were met with batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. On June 30, 2020, the National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing without consultation, without legislative scrutiny, without democratic mandate. Overnight, speech became evidence and organisation became conspiracy.

Since then, more than 1,900 political arrests have been made. Independent media outlets, including Apple Daily and Stand News, have been forced to shut down. Opposition political parties have been dismantled. Civil society organisations and NGOs have been erased. School curricula have been rewritten to enforce political loyalty, replacing critical thinking with so-called “patriotic education.”

And I hate that this happened in your name.

I hate that your skyline is now used as a backdrop for propaganda. I hate that the international community speaks of you as a “financial hub” first and a human rights disaster second. I hate that some still describe you as a rule of law city instead of calling it what it is.

But hatred is not where I stop. Because I have not forgotten the lives still bound to your streets.

I think of Jimmy Lai.

A 78-year-old man. A publisher. A political prisoner. He founded Apple Daily, one of the last openly pro-democracy newspapers in Hong Kong. For that, his newsroom was raided, his paper forced to close, his assets frozen and he has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. He has been denied bail, denied medical care, denied basic dignity. His “crime” is not violence. It is belief. Belief that Hong Kong people deserved the truth.

I think of the Hong Kong 47.

Forty-seven people charged with “subversion” for organising and participating in a pro-democracy primary election. More than 600,000 Hong Kongers voted in that primary. That number matters. It proves legitimacy. It proves that the public wanted representation. For that, 45 of them were convicted. Some sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. Not for overthrowing the state. Not for violence. But for trying to win seats in a legislature that no longer exists in any meaningful sense.

I think of the Hong Kong Alliance.

For more than three decades, the Alliance organised the annual June 4 vigil. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Victoria Park, candle in hand, remembering the Tiananmen massacre. It was one of the last mass commemorations on Chinese soil.

That memory was intolerable. So the Alliance was dismantled and its leaders arrested.

Chow Hang-tung refused to lie. She refused to cooperate with political prosecutions dressed up as regulatory enforcement. For that, she remains imprisoned. Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho were silenced the same way.

They are not symbols by choice. They are symbols because the state needed examples.

Hong Kong is now a place where law is no longer a shield, but a weapon. Where courts are used to legitimise outcomes decided in advance. Where “patriots only” elections guarantee that no one speaks for the people except those approved by power.

Exile has then become the price of conscience. That activists are forced to choose between silence and safety. That transnational repression now follows us abroad through threats, bounties, and intimidation.

Sadly, the world has learned to live with it. Governments around the world issue statements. Trade continues. Hong Kong did not fall quietly, it was pushed. And those responsible should be named, sanctioned, isolated, and remembered. Not rewarded with visas, honours, or diplomatic smiles.

I write as someone who has paid a price for refusing to be silent. I write as someone who cannot go home, not because I committed a crime, but because I refused to accept a lie. I write as someone who still believes that international pressure matters, that solidarity matters, that truth still has weight.

Dear Hong Kong,

I love you enough to tell the truth about what you have become.

I love you enough to fight for the people still inside you.

And I will not stop.

Not until prisoners are free.

Not until memory is restored.

Not until your name no longer needs defending.