Washington: The United States on Monday voiced disappointment at China’s human rights progress in 2004, and warned that the situation worsened in Myanmar, in a sweeping global report that hit hard at several Asian nations.

The State Department’s annual report also deplored North Korea’s “extremely poor” record last year and noted continuing problems in Indonesia, Nepal and Pakistan, an ally in Washington’s war on terror.

“China’s cooperation and progress on human rights during 2004 was disappointing,” the report said, adding that Beijing failed to fulfill many commitments it made at the 2002 US-China Human Rights Dialogue.

“China’s human rights conduct remains one of the top concerns of the US government,” the State Department’s undersecretary for global affairs, Paula Dobriansky, told reporters. “Throughout China and notably in Tibet, affronts to the dignity of human rights abound.”

The department’s report said authorities “were quick to suppress religious, political, and social groups that they perceived as threatening to government authority or national stability, especially before sensitive dates such as the 15th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and other significant political and religious occasions.”

Though China’s constitution was amended to mention human rights for the first time, it was unclear to what extent Beijing planned to implement the amendment, the report said.

The United States rebuked military-led Myanmar, saying its “extremely poor human rights record worsened.”

Although there were not reports of government-affiliated agents killing pro-democracy activists as in previous years, security forces continued to carry out extrajudicial killings and committed rapes and torture, according to the report.

The government arrested at least 85 democracy supporters in 2004, mainly members of the National League for Democracy (NLD). While 42 people were later released, 43 were charged, tried and put in prison.

The department also noted the continuing detention of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of the NLD.

Despite improvements in Pakistan, “serious problems remained” as police abused and raped citizens in addition to making arbitrary arrests, the report charged.

The government of President Pervez Musharraf “imposed some limits on freedom of association, religion, and movement.”

North Korea’s Stalinist government “continued to commit numerous serious abuses,” with reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and arbitrary detentions, the State Department said.

“Prison conditions were harsh and life-threatening, and torture reportedly was common,” it said.

“Pregnant female prisoners reportedly underwent forced abortions, and in other cases babies reportedly were killed upon birth in prisons.”

In Nepal, where King Gyanendra seized power in early February, security forces “used arbitrary and unlawful lethal force and continued to abuse detainees, sometimes using torture as punishment or to extract confessions.”

The report also took aim at the Nepal’s Maoist rebels, saying they led a campaign of torture and bombing in its battle for a communist republic in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom.

Indonesia, meanwhile, “made substantial progress in strengthening its democracy,” the report said, although abuses persisted as security forces murdered, tortured and raped civilians and members of separatist movements in Aceh province.

Media also were targeted, the report said.

“Members of the security forces and other groups sometimes limited freedom of expression by intimidating or attacking journalists whose articles they found objectionable,” the report said.