Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, June 17, 1997

LONDON, June 18 (AFP) - Serious human rights abuses were widespread in the Asia-Pacific region during 1996, said Amnesty International in its annual report published Wednesday.

_Security forces and armed opposition groups were responsible for widespread extrajudicial executions and 'disappearances', while torture and ill-treatment was commonplace in police stations and prison cells," said the human rights organisation.

_Thousands of prisoners or prisoners of conscience languished in jails with or without often unfair trials."

The report highlighted the government-Tamil Tiger conflict in northern Sri Lanka, where it said it had documented 220 _disappearances" in the year, mostly in the Jaffna peninsula.

It also condemned the Indonesian government for the _most severe crackdown on pro-democracy activists for 20 years."

Burma saw the _worst year for human rights since 1990", it said, with 2,000 protesters arrested and members of the opposition attacked by mobs apparently encouraged by the government.

Journalists had also been attacked and abducted, said Amnesty, citing Jammu and Kashmir in India, Pakistan and Cambodia, where security forces were said to be involved in killings.

Other targets included non-governmental organisations such as the leader of a Malaysian women's group exposing allegations of human rights abuses, who was put on trial, and South Korean trade unions, who faced new laws maintaining restrictions on their basic rights, said the report.

The Taliban militia in Afghanistan was also singled out for criticism by Amnesty for its treatment of women, which it said included beatings for leaving the home or not dressing in accordance with strict Islamic law.

China came under attack for a number of different reasons. _Amnesty remained concerned that the right to freedom of expression and association could be severely curtailed in Hong Kong" following the handover of the British colony at the end of this month.

China had also sentenced at least 6,000 people to death, the group reported, more than 3,500 of whom had been executed. Chinese human rights activists were also being jailed or held in jail, and in Nepal the group said 100 Amnesty and Tibetan activists had been jailed for two days for calling for human rights reforms in China.

Also singled out for its use of the death penalty was the Philippines, which executed at least 127 people in 1996. _Reports of police brutality and forced confessions continued", said the group.

Finally Australia was criticised for the jailing of Albert Langer in February 1996 _the first prisoner of conscience since the Vietnam war", it said.