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UN rights chief criticizes ‘ugly’ tone of US presidential race

Saturday, 16 April 2016 12:26 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 16 April 2016 2:07 AM ]

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein addresses a session of the Human Rights Council at in Geneva, Switzerland, February 29, 2016. (AFP)

The UN high commissioner for human rights has criticized the rhetoric of US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and other presidential candidates, saying they have resurrected the “ugly phantom of racial and religious division.”

"We have heard hateful slander of foreigners, and multiple candidates declaring their support for extensive and intrusive surveillance of people based on their religious beliefs -- vast and discriminatory systems to single out and discriminate against Muslims," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a speech entitled "The Road to Violence", delivered in the US city of Cleveland on Friday.

"Less than 150 miles (241 kilometers) away from where I speak, a front-running candidate to be president of this country declared, just a few months ago, his enthusiastic support for torture, ... inflicting intolerable pain on people, in order to force them to deliver or invent information that they may not have,” Hussein added.

*US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Albany, New York, April 11, 2016. (AFP)*

He also noted that the eyes of the world would be on Cleveland in July, when Republicans gather in the city to select their party’s presidential nominee, expressing "deepest hope" that people would use the opportunity to choose wisely and demonstrate their understanding of human dignity and human rights.

"And yet, in what may be a crucial election for leadership of this country later this year, we have seen a full-frontal attack -- disguised as courageous taboo-busting -- on some fundamental, hard-won tenets of decency and social cohesion that have come to be accepted by American society," the UN official said.

The OHCHR chief further stressed that innocent people, falling victim to violent acts -- not politicians -- would pay the price for the "dangerously divisive" rhetoric of the US presidential hopefuls, particularly Trump.

The Republican contender’s campaign has been replete with controversy from the beginning, including disparaging remarks about women, immigrants, and Muslims.

Trump’s words have drawn widespread condemnation both domestically and internationally, with Muslim American activists warning that his racist statements were only intensifying a wave of Islamophobia across the United States.

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