Asian states yesterday marked Human Rights Day with rhetoric, demonstrations, protests and, in the case of China, preparations to charge pro-democracy dissidents with criminal offences.
In Indonesia thousands of students marked the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with rallies demanding former president Suharto's trial for corruption and an end to the military's role in politics, and in Malaysia lawyers decided to hold a wake for human rights today.
In Beijing, President Jiang Zemin pledged to push forward human rights in China and fully safeguard the democratic rights and freedom of the Chinese people.
"We will continue to strengthen the socialist democratic and legal system and implement the rule by law," Mr Jiang said in a letter to the China Society for Human Rights Studies. "The Chinese people, together with the international community, will make their own contribution to a just, equitable, peaceful and prosperous world."
China has signed a total of 17 international covenants on human rights, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guaranteeing political freedoms two months ago. But Beijing has been signalling clearly in recent weeks that it will interpret the covenant in its own way.
The country's most prominent dissident, Mr Xu Wenli, who was involved in attempts to set up an opposition China Democratic Party, was detained two weeks ago and his family expect him to be formally charged soon.
A human rights group based in Hong Kong said yesterday that his wife, Ms He Xintong, was told to "go home and read the criminal law" when she asked what offence her husband had committed. The charge is expected to be "incitement to overthrow state power" - the same charge brought recently against another China Democratic Party member, Mr Qin Yongmin.
A second associate, Mr Wang Youcai, is to go on trial on December 17th.
In terms which indicate that Mr Xu has already been adjudged guilty of a criminal offence, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday that he "is suspected of activities damaging to state security and his action violates the relevant provisions of the criminal law."
The spokesman said that the public security bureaus in Beijing, Hubei and Zhejiang had detained several activists for investigation and that China rejected the intervention of foreign forces.
In Hong Kong two dozen human rights activists marched to government buildings to demand that China honour the human rights covenants which it has signed. They shouted, "Live up to human rights covenants! Release dissidents!"
Mr Szeto Wah, the protest leader, told reporters: "The Chinese government was cheating the world when signing those pledges. Many dissidents are still locked up in dark cells. People have no freedom of speech, association or assembly at all. It is also banning the formation of political parties."
International criticism of China has been mounting since its crackdown on the China Democratic Party. The Australian Institute for International Affairs in Canberra yesterday claimed that Australia and other Western countries had been sucked in by a sophisticated Chinese propaganda campaign on human rights.
Prof Bill Jenner of the Australian National University said that enthusiasm about China signing international agreements on human rights did not mean much in practice.
"Let us not talk as if China is making great progress towards formal freedoms until that is actually the case," he said.
In Jakarta some 5,000 students gathered outside the Defence Department and pushed through a police line before being halted by a line of troops.
Elsewhere in the Indonesian capital, 1,000 rallied outside the United Nations offices, closing one of Jakarta's main thoroughfares, and a similar crowd protested outside parliament in protest at the denial of human rights during the 32 years of the Suharto regime.
In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Bar and the National Human Rights Society of Malaysia will today hold a human rights wake at its headquarters, to make a point about human rights deficiencies in Malaysia.
Bar Council honorary secretary Mr Mah Weng Kwai said: "As we have recently witnessed numerous instances of human rights injustices and abuses of the fundamental liberties of our citizens, the Malaysian Bar considers it timely to hold a wake in place of its previous `Festival of Rights' that marked Human Rights Day."
He said the wake would consist of dances, songs and poems by local artistes, pertaining to human rights issues and abuses.
A reformasi (reform) movement which has grown up recently in Malaysia is campaigning against the state's Internal Security Act, which allows internment without trial and was used to detain the former deputy prime minister, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, in September.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, government and ruling coalition officials failed to agree on the terms of a proposed human rights Act yesterday.