Washington: Southeast Asia’s human rights record took a knock in 2004 following Thailand’s brutal crackdown on Muslim insurgents, the harrassment of dissidents in Vietnam, resurgence of military power in Indonesia and denial of basic freedoms in Myanmar, Human Rights Watch said in an annual report Thursday.

The steady erosion of respect for human rights in Thailand that has characterized Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatras rule “accelerated sharply,” the rights watchdog said.

It cited military repressions against a steadily escalating insurgency in the countrys predominantly Muslim southern provinces.

The revolt culminated in the death of 86 protesters at the hands of security forces in October 2004 and a retaliatory spate of deadly bombings and beheadings of locally prominent Buddhists, apparently by Muslim insurgent groups.

Since the area was placed under martial law in January 2004, at least 550 people have been killed, some apparently by insurgent groups, some at the hands of military and paramilitary forces.

“Thai security forces, increasingly able to act with impunity, engaged in brutal crackdowns against insurgents in the south,” the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

It also highlighted what it called government pressure and intimidation on Thailands once-thriving human rights community.

Thailand’s neighbour Myanmar remains one of the most repressive countries in Asia, despite promises for political reform and national reconciliation by its authoritarian military government, the rights group said.

Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest and the activities of her political party, the National League for Democracy, remain curtailed.

HRW also accused the military regime in Yangon of using internationally outlawed tactics in ongoing conflicts with ethnic minority rebel groups.

Myanmar “has more child soldiers than any other country in the world, and its forces have used extrajudicial execution, rape, torture, forced relocation of villages, and forced labor in campaigns against rebel groups,” it said.

Thousands of Myanmar citizens, most of them from embattled ethnic minorities, have fled to neighboring countries, in particular Thailand.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest nation, experienced its first ever direct presidential election last year, marking another step toward full democratization but significant barriers to rule of law and human rights remain in place, HRW said.

Pressing human rights concerns in Indonesia included the resurgent power of the military in social and political affairs, the report said.

The group charged the military with commiting atrocities and abuses in the restive provinces of Aceh and Papua.

Aceh was the biggest casualty of the December 26 deadly tsunami, triggered by an undersea earthquake off Sumatra that unleashed towering waves which killed over 100,000 people.

Human Rights Watch also expressed worry over “disturbing signs of a return to intimidation of the press and criminalization of dissent” in Indonesia.

In Vietnam, human rights conditions, already dismal, worsened in 2004, the group said.

The government tolerates little public criticism of the Communist Party or statements calling for pluralism, democracy, or a free press, it added.

“Dissidents are harassed, isolated, placed under house arrest, and in many cases, charged with crimes and imprisoned,” it said.

The Vietnamese government, it said, continues to brand all unauthorized religious activities — particularly those that it fears may attract a large following — as potentially subversive.

Targeted in particular are members of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and ethnic minority Protestants in the northern and central highlands.

Prominent human rights concerns in Malaysia include arbitrary detention of alleged militants under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA), restrictions on media freedom, constraints on judicial independence and abuses against refugees and migrants, HRW said.

The Malaysian government is holding more than eighty detainees under ISA without charge or any type of judicial review, it said.

In Cambodia, the group said, authorities continue to ban or disperse most public demonstrations.

Politicians and journalists critical of the government face violence and intimidation and are barred from equal access to the broadcast media, the rights watchdog said.

In addition, the judiciary remains weak and subject to political influence while trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation through networks protected or backed by police or government officials is rampant, it added.