WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (AFP) - China's repression in Tibet last year included threats to foreign leaders against meeting with the Dalai Lama, the State Department said Thursday in its annual human rights report.

The Chinese government "sought to limit the Dalai Lama's international influence by threatening leaders of Britain, Germany, Australia and other nations with serious diplomatic and economic consequences if they met with him during his visits to those countries," the department said in its review of human rights in 194 countries and territories.

International leaders "generally ignored" China's threats and welcomed meetings with the Tibetan Buddhist religious leader, the report said.

The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile is not recognized by any country, but his campaign for self-determination in Tibet has received international recognition, including the Nobel peace prize.

The State Department report said Chinese authorities tightened controls on religion, targeting religious practices seen as a vehicle for political dissent, and on freedom of speech and the press in 1996.

But a Washington-based pro-Tibet organization criticized the US government report as incomplete and misleading.

International Campaign for Tibet, a non-profit organization that monitors and promotes human rights and democratic freedoms in Tibet, noted that the report fails to mention Beijing's threats toward Washington.

"Conspicuously absent from the list of countries was the United States, which has done a poor job in the face of China's threats," said John Ackerly, director of the Campaign.

The report also erroneously infers, "as do Chinese propaganda materials" that only religious practices that advocate Tibetan independence are banned, the Campaign said. The group said numerous religious practices without overt political content are being suppressed, such as annual religious festivals.

The State Department, citing "credible reports" in its "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in 1996," said Chinese authorities "continued to commit widespread human rights abuses in Tibet," including torture, detention without trial and long detention of Tibetan nationalists for peacefully expressing their religious and political views.

"Authorities increased repression, imprisonment, and abuse or torture of monks and nuns accused of political activism," the report said.

China seized control of Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed anti-Chinese uprising in his homeland.