But Loh Tsz-wai, a former student union leader at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), responded by helping to set up Local Youth Will, a group that recently organized a commemorative event for the 2019 protest movement in Sham Shui Po. He spoke to RFA's Cantonese Service in a recent interview about keeping alive a spirit of resistance against creeping authoritarian rule in Hong Kong. "The 'local' part refers to our promotion of social reform, as well as the anti-extradition movement of 2019, while the 'youth' part indicates that young people are the pioneers of social reform anywhere," Loh said. "If we give in too easily and go underground, then we're just giving them exactly what they want."
Loh's group has already been targeted for criticism by the pro-Beijing media, which is often a harbinger of arrest under the national security law.
