"I knew I might go to prison for trying to make change — but the cost was greater than I imagined," said Kelly, who did not want to share her last name. She was 18 years old when she was arrested in 2021 for "conspiracy to incite subversion" and "conspiracy to manufacture explosives."   

Kelly was one of the youngest defendants linked to a youth group that called itself "Returning Valiant," the first case in which minors were sentenced under a sweeping national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.

Beijing said the law was aimed at quelling dissent following the massive, sometimes violent, pro-democracy protests that rocked the semi-autonomous southern Chinese city in 2019–20.

After nearly four years in custody, Kelly walked free this April, into a city that felt unrecognizable.

"Everything feels unfamiliar," she said. The local cafes, the small shops, the familiar corners — all had disappeared or been replaced by new ones that felt almost foreign. "The Hong Kong I knew is gone."

Her days now follow a quieter rhythm. She works part-time at a cafe, visits a psychiatrist once a month, and tries to sleep through the night without waking up drenched in sweat. "Sometimes I dream that people are chasing me, shooting from a rooftop. When I wake, I check the door, the window — just to make sure they're not here."      

The sounds of the city she returned to hit like a memory she couldn't escape. "I can't breathe when there are too many people."

Beijing's control on Hong Kong tightened

Many of her old friends have left; others avoid her. "Some don't know what to say. Others are just scared."

Kelly keeps her head down — avoiding slogans, old friends, anything that might draw attention. She has learned to speak less, to weigh her words carefully. "Even laughter feels different now."

The silence she has learned to live with is one the city now shares.

In 2025, as the government marked five years since the national security law's introduction, arrests slowed but control deepened.

New education initiatives monitor students' online speech, while candidates for district-council elections must pass loyalty reviews, and former prisoners — though technically free — describe living under unseen surveillance.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the government announced plans to install tens of thousands of AI-equipped cameras across the city by 2028 — part of a "SmartView" network officials say will enhance public safety. For many Hong Kongers, it feels like an extension of the same system, Kelly said.  

The pressure is more visible for Joker Chan.

He served five months in prison for seditious online posts — phrases and slogans shared at a time when expression still felt possible. Since his release in 2022, police have stopped and searched him hundreds of times. "You come out thinking you've paid your dues," he said, "but society keeps charging you interest. It feels like they're reminding me every day — you're never really free."

His tattoos, once symbols of conviction, now make him stand out on the street. "Sometimes they just stare," he said. "Sometimes they ask questions that have nothing to do with anything." 

Release from prison not the end of the story for Hong Kong protesters

The stories of Kelly and Joker are different, but their lives trace the same pattern.

One lives with the weight of memory, the other under the gaze of suspicion. For both, release marked not an end but a continuation — freedom measured in caution, in silence, in the space between watching and being watched.

When the judge sentenced the Returning Valiant defendants, he wrote: "Even if only one person is incited by them, the social stability of Hong Kong and the safety of residents may be seriously endangered."

He admitted there was no direct evidence that anyone had been incited, yet called the "real risk" enough to justify punishment. In that reasoning lies the essence of the city's new order: The idea of danger itself has become the crime. The crackdown did not end with prison; it simply changed form.

Some choose to start a new life elsewhere — but for Kelly and Joker, staying has become a small act of witnessing.

"Leaving feels like erasing everything we went through," Kelly said.

She stays for her family, for those still inside, and for the fragments of a city she once belonged to.

Joker stays too, his past etched into his skin as burden and memory — a record of what can't be said aloud. "This is my home, my street, my story."

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru