U.N. human rights chief condemns attacks on media
Says ‘fake news’ label has consequences outside United States
GENEVA — The United Nations human rights chief said Wednesday 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 alHussein, the high commissioner for human rights, at a news conference in Geneva was an unusually forceful criticism of a head of state by a U.N. official.
“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.
In an attempt to deflect criticism that he had stoked racial divisions by failing to unequivocally condemn the actions of neoNazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., as racist, Trump had accused the news media of giving a platform to hate groups. He singled out by name The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post.
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 organizations fake does tremendous damage,” al-Hussein added. “I believe it could amount to incitement. At an enormous rally, referring to journalists as very, very bad people — you don’t have to stretch the imagination to see then what could happen to journalists.”
Before the presidential election, al-Hussein had warned that Trump could be a danger to international stability, but Wednesday, at a news conference to discuss Venezuela, the human rights chief focused mainly on more recent domestic events.
Al-Hussein said the president’s demonization of the news media was “poisonous because it has consequences elsewhere.” If a journalist were to be harmed, he asked, “does the president not bear responsibility for this, for having fanned this?”
Countries that did not recognize the essential role of the news media could be inspired if journalists in the United States were attacked, he said.
Al-Hussein also condemned the president’s comments regarding Muslims, minorities and transgender people as “grossly irresponsible.”
Al-Hussein compared Trump with a bus driver “careening down a mountain path.” From a human rights perspective, he said, “it seems to be reckless driving.”