Every suicide is a tragedy, especially if the person is young and full of promise and potential. But what drives people to kill themselves in the dark night of the soul will always remain a human mystery. Every case is different. In the absence of personal and clinical knowledge, the only decent thing for most of us to do is observe a moment of silence and respect the privacy of the grief-stricken family. At the weekend, a student at the Education University jumped to her death at her Sheung Shui home in an apparent suicide. Before she died, she reportedly wrote messages on a wall of her housing estate and on Instagram opposing the government’s recent actions in relation to the extradition bill. One of her messages reportedly said: “I wish to trade my life for the wishes of two million people. Keep on fighting.” 13 police injured, protesters pepper sprayed amid Hong Kong handover event A plaza at the university has become a shrine to the 21-year-old student, who is now widely portrayed as a martyr to the cause. Another anti-extradition protester, aged 35, fell to his death at Pacific Place in Admiralty more than two weeks ago. People paid tributes and laid flowers in the days that followed. He too was called a martyr. It’s now common to refer to the anti-government movement as the “two million plus two”, referring to the unprecedented turnout that organisers claimed marched against the bill and “the two” who died. While the bill, now suspended indefinitely, and its related issues may be a cause worth fighting for, it is not worth dying for. This is especially so considering the “cause” has mostly been won. The government has conceded; the chief executive has apologised, twice, and may be out of a job soon; and there is no way the bill will be revived any time soon. Lam needs bold action to save battered reputation, says top pollster If these still don’t meet the demands of the opposition and other protest groups, it’s because many young people don’t know they have already won and opportunistic politicians are more than happy to goad them on. Promoting the two unfortunate people as martyrs is to glorify their deaths and potentially encourage more people who may be mentally unstable to commit extreme self-harm in the service of an ideological cause. Their deaths are not an excuse to push further and become more extreme. Enough is enough! It is time to stop before more people are hurt.