Donald Trump's attacks on 'fake news' media an incitement to violence, says UN human rights chief

High Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein rebukes US President for repeated denunciation of press critical of his actions

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix on 22 August 2017 (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)

The United Nations human rights chief has said that President Donald Trump’s repeated denunciations of some media outlets as “fake news” could amount to incitement to violence and had potentially dangerous consequences outside the United States.

The rebuke by Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, at a news conference in Geneva was an unusually forceful criticism of a head of state by a UN official.

​Al-Hussein was reacting to Trump’s recent comments at a rally in Phoenix during which he spoke of “crooked media deceptions” in reports of the violent clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a counter-protester.

In Phoenix, the President’s words also appeared to whip up audience hostility toward journalists.

“It’s really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only a cornerstone of the Constitution but very much something the United States defended over the years, is now itself under attack from the president himself,” al-Hussein said. “It’s a stunning turnaround.”

Asked for comment, the White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in an emailed statement, “We believe in free press and think it is an important part of our democracy, but the press also has a big responsibility to the American people to be truthful. Their job is to report the news, not create it.

“Is it not ‘dangerous’ for the media,” she continued, “to create false narratives and overzealous attacks against the president that the American people chose to be their leader? The president is focused on growing our economy, creating jobs, securing our border and protecting Americans. Since those are also the priorities of most Americans, hopefully the media will make covering them theirs.”

In an attempt to deflect criticism that he had stoked racial divisions by failing to unequivocally condemn the actions of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville as racist, Trump had accused the news media of giving a platform to hate groups.

Al-Hussein said that the violence in Charlottesville was “an abomination.” The Nazi salutes, the display of swastikas and the anti-Semitic chants had no place in the United States or anywhere else, he said.

“To call these news organisations fake does tremendous damage,” al-Hussein added.

The New York Times