President ‘is fuelling repression’

AMNESTY International has compared Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte, as the organisation warns that his policies in the US are fuelling repression around the world.

Mr Trump was accused of ushering in “a new era of human rights regression” and charged, along with other controversial world leaders, with “shamelessly turning the clock back on decades of hard-won protections”.

“The spectres of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights,” said Shalil Shetty, the executive director of Amnesty International.

“Instead, leaders such as al-sisi, Duterte, Maduro, Putin and Trump are callously undermining the rights of millions.” Mr Trump’s willingness to tout “fake news” in order to manipulate public opinion, coupled with attacks on institutions that act as checks on power, show that free speech will be a key battle-ground for human rights this year, the organisation said.

Presenting their annual report for the first time in the US, in a sign of how seriously they were taking Mr Trump’s actions, Amnesty said that he has “wasted little time in putting his antirights rhetoric of discrimination and xenophobia into action”.