Afghanistan, however, was heaped with praise for its improving rights situation more than two years after the US-led removal of the repressive Taliban regime.

In the US State Department's annual score-card China drew fire for reversing earlier improvements in its record, with the report citing "backsliding on key human rights issues".

It cited arrests of democracy activists and online dissidents, and the targeting of labour protesters, defence lawyers, journalists, house church members and "others seeking to take advantage of the space created by reforms".

It said a "harsh repression" of the Falungong religious group continued, that China's record in Tibet remained "poor," and that the government had used the war on terror to justify its ongoing crackdown against Muslim Uighurs.

North Korea was singled out for some of the harshest criticism, being labelled "one of the most inhuman regimes in the world".

"Rigid controls over information, which limit the extent of our report, reflect the totalitarian repression of North Korean society," it said.

"Basic freedoms are unheard of, and the regime committed widespread abuses of human rights."

The Stalinist state was guilty of "among other abuses -- killings, persecution of forcibly repatriated North Koreans, and harsh conditions in the extensive prison camp system including torture, forced abortions and infanticide."

Myanmar's "highly authoritarian regime" had overseen "numerous, serious human rights abuses", the report said.

In particular it criticised the attack on and detention of pro-democracy campaigners including opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi by government-paid thugs on May 30.

"The government has not investigated or admitted any role in the attack," the report said.

It added that security forces were guilty of extrajudicial killings, rape, using forced labour and conscripting child soldiers and that 70 pro-democracy activists were killed and 270 democracy supporters arrested.

Other countries whose rights records remained poor, according to the report, included Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Tonga, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and The Maldives.

Serious abuses were listed in countries that had otherwise good records, including India, where extrajudicial killings were common, and Sri Lanka, where custodial rape and assault were a concern.

Pakistan, an ally in the war on terror was not spared criticism. Security forces were praised for aiding the hunt for terror chief Osama bin Laden, but "used excessive force, at times resulting in death, and committed or failed to prevent extrajudicial killings of suspected militants and civilians".