Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has vowed to safeguard human rights and the island's security in the face of a missile threat from the mainland.
In his address yesterday on the Double Tenth holiday - which Taiwan celebrates as its national day - Ma declared he would set up a human rights committee under his office to oversee such issues.
'Vice-President [Vincent] Siew will chair the committee and is in charge of setting it up,' Ma told a rally attended by thousands of people, including 216 foreign dignitaries. This is the 99th year since the founding of the Republic of China.
The committee would comprise public officials and private citizens, who would develop human rights policies and release reports regularly to improve human rights in Taiwan.
Ma's comments came a day after he urged Beijing to free jailed human rights activist Liu Xiaobo , the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, as soon as possible.
Ma congratulated Liu on Friday, soon after the prize was announced. But he did not immediately call for his release. Opposition and pro-independence groups in Taiwan later criticised Ma for failing to call for Liu's release. They said it proved Ma had abandoned his commitments to safeguard democratic values in order to please Beijing, which had slammed the peace-prize decision.