LONDON, England (CNN) -- Amnesty International has celebrated its 40th birthday by highlighting human rights abuses in 149 countries, including a rise in intolerance of religious and ethnic minorities in Asia.

The London-based human rights group says the intolerance was manifest in ongoing civil wars, coups, religious repression, ethnic unrest and displacement, torture, and the harsh treatment of asylum-seekers.

In its annual report, Amnesty condemned endemic use of torture in China, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar and noted that people are tortured or ill treated by police and security forces in 20 countries in the region.

Twelve Asian countries carry out confirmed or extra-judicial executions, while more than a dozen countries hold prisoners of conscience and arrest or detain people without charge of trial, it said .

Singapore had the world's highest number of executions per capita in 2000, while China carried out 1,000 executions in 2000 according to limited records available to the group, it reported.

Amnesty also lashes out on armed opposition groups in eight Asian nations for deliberate and arbitrary killings, torture and kidnapping of civilians.

Focus on Falun Gong

The organization criticized China for continuing to crack down on religious groups and ethnic minorities.

At least 93 followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have died in custody and hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns remain in jail in Tibet by the end of 2000, according to Amnesty.

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http://europe.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/05/30/amnesty.asia/index.html