Hong Kong, September 2019. I was on the streets every other day, having just joined the Protect the Children Action group (PtCA). It was the height of the pro-democracy protests. The Hong Kong police shot two people in the eye, a nurse and a journalist, and tear-gassed care homes full of elderly residents. Hong Kongers fought back. Young people may have been the backbone of the protest, but the whole of society mobilised. Alongside those marching peacefully, others handed out food and drink, and the Methodist Church in Wan Chai opened its doors to everyone, offering shelter and comfort.

PtCA was made up of older people who could not run as fast as the young, or whose other commitments kept them from the frontlines. Yet we stood at the forefront of the protest, facing the police directly. One of our members was beaten by more than 40 police officers in a back alley. We formed human chains, trying to separate police from civilians. We stood as lookouts, warning people of approaching police so they could decide whether to stay or go. We made sure the young stragglers — one as young as 13 years old — were not picked up.

This culminated in the university sieges. After a day of fighting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I remember the quiet that followed; the ashes on the ground still smelled of tear gas, assaulting my senses. The quiet sunrise over the mountains meant we had made it through another day. A week later, at the Polytechnic University, things were more desperate. I saw a girl curled up behind the entrance to the MTR (Hong Kong’s metro), screaming, as a water cannon hit the building at full force. That was my protest.

Now I carry on my work with the CFHK Foundation, a charity with offices in London and Washington that advocates for the release of political prisoners and for restoring what rightfully belongs to Hong Kongers under the Sino-British Joint Declaration. It doesn’t feel like a decision to dedicate my life to Hong Kong so much as an inevitability for someone as stubborn as me. I understand not everyone is built the same way, but I can’t in good conscience live a normal life while political prisoners like Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen, and Joshua Wong chose to stay in Hong Kong to be persecuted by an unjust judiciary. So, to temper my own feelings of cowardice, I do what I can for Hong Kongers here and in Hong Kong, fighting for the rights that Beijing promised us.

The judiciary that handed a 20-year prison sentence to Jimmy Lai is partly legitimised on the world stage by two British lords — Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury and Lord Hoffmann, who continue to sit as non-permanent judges on the Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s apex court.

Lord Neuberger and Lord Hoffmann lend their considerable reputations, and that of Britain’s legal system itself, to this authoritarian jurisdiction. Because they’re retired, the House of Lords has no power to recall them. So I’d like to thank Baroness Ludford for suggesting her two colleagues in the House of Lords might reconsider their roles on the Court of Final Appeal during the recent debate on the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. Public pressure is the only way to make them see sense — I encourage other Liberal Democrats to echo such sentiments in parliament.

Working for the CFHK Foundation risks the displeasure of both the Hong Kong and Chinese governments. My predecessor, Chloe Cheung, famously has a £100,000 bounty on her head, courtesy of the Hong Kong police. I fear that what I’ve done in Hong Kong, and what I do now in the UK, will put a target on my back. Just a few months before I took this job, Bill Yuen and Peter Wai were convicted at the Old Bailey of assisting a foreign intelligence service while receiving payment from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in London — the territory’s de facto embassy. They stalked people, gathered information, infiltrated activist circles, and were finally caught breaking into someone’s flat.

This could happen to me, my family, or my friends. I don’t think it’s acceptable, to any Liberal, anywhere, that we should live in fear of some illegitimate dictator’s goons breaking into our homes. If the Chinese government says the Sino-British Joint Declaration is a “historical document” of no relevance today, then I say the same should apply to recognition of Hong Kong’s autonomy — the 1996 law that enshrined the HKETO in London with diplomatic protections should be revoked.

I know, rationally, that the chances of holding the Chinese government to account and restoring liberty to the Hong Kong people are slim. But that’s not why I do this work. I do it because of the love I have for my people, and my hope that they might one day enjoy the liberty that was promised to them.

* Alan Dai is a Hong Konger and a public affairs and advocacy manager at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation. He is also a former Sutton Liberal Democrat community organiser.