The Hong Kong government proposed legislation on Monday that would allow the city’s leader to designate certain criminal acts as national security offences, stepping up efforts to stamp out challenges to its rules in the city where critics say freedoms have been eroding.
After massive democracy protests rocked the Asian financial hub in 2019, Beijing imposed a national security law that has been used to arrest many leading activists.
The city's government in 2024 enacted another security law, targeting other crimes such as espionage and disclosing state secrets.
Critics said the two security laws have stifled the city’s Western-style civil liberties that Beijing had promised to maintain when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
But authorities insist the laws are crucial for the city's stability.
