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On Human Rights Day this year, we remind all governments that almost sixty years ago in 1948, world governments adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which articulated and codified the rights of all individuals, with the fundamental message that every person is born free and equal with inalienable human rights, simply because he or she is a human being.

Despite this universal recognition decades ago, people continue to suffer from the denial of basic rights throughout the world. We, as human rights defenders in Asia, are particularly concerned about the deteriorating state of human rights in the region, as well as disappearances, extrajudicial killings and persecution of human rights defenders, aggravated by the prevailing culture of impunity for human rights violators and renewed emphasis by Asian governments on "cultural specificities" to justify human rights violations.