After two years of turmoil and change, Hong Kong was not the same for Mike Hui. One month ago, the 36-year-old photographer pulled up roots and moved with his wife and young daughter to the UK to try starting anew.

“I felt that I couldn’t stay anymore, and that I couldn’t let my next generation grow up in a society like this,” he said.

His departure came after anti-government protests divided the city in 2019 and a subsequent crackdown that has rounded up democracy activists and stifled dissent.

Until early April, Hui was a photojournalist for the Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper that shut down last week following the arrest of five top editors and executives and the freezing of its assets under a national security law that China’s ruling Communist Party imposed on Hong Kong as part of the crackdown.

He called the closing of the paper, where he worked for seven years, heart-aching.

“I felt that all my memories of these years, and everything that proved that I existed in this place as well as this industry, were gone. It’s like losing a family member who was very close to you,” he said.