Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that Beijing's proposed national security laws would not trample on the city's rights and freedoms and called on its citizens to wait to see the details of the legislation.
"There is no need for us to worry," Lam told a regular weekly news conference, but she did not explain how the freedoms that Hong Kong enjoys will be upheld.
"In the last 23 years, whenever people worried about Hong Kong's freedom of speech and freedom of expression and protest, time and again, Hong Kong has proven that we uphold and preserve those values," she said.
"The best thing is to see the legislation in front of us and to understand why at this point in time Hong Kong needs this piece of legislation."