UN rights chief ticks off Donald Trump for bigotry

The UN rights chief took a swipe at US Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Friday, accusing him of exploiting fear and resorting to bigotry in campaigning that he warned was a “road to violence.”

Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein delivered the blunt criticism in a speech at a university in Cleveland, Ohio, where Republicans will gather in July to choose their White House nominee.

Over the past months, Mr Trump has promised to build a wall on the US-Mexico border to keep out migrants and to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

“Bigotry is not proof of strong leadership,” said Mr Zeid, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“Hate speech, incitement and marginalisation of the ‘other’ are not a tittering form of entertainment, or a respectable vehicle for political profit,” he said. “To casually toss this gasoline on the smoldering embers of fear is to risk great harm to a great nation. Discrimination is a powerful and profoundly destructive force.”

Mr Zeid did not refer to Mr Trump by name but he deplored the “frontrunning candidate for President” who declared his support for torture.

Meanwhile, several former participants of the programme that catapulted Mr Trump into a reality television star turned the tables on the Republican frontrunner on Friday, hitting out at the “sexism” and “racism” of his presidential campaign.

Mr Trump’s well-worn catchphrase “You’re fired!” signalled the end for contestants on The Apprentice, but they returned to haunt the billionaire real-estate mogul ahead of the crucial New York state primary on Tuesday.

The group, including Dr Randal Pinkett, an entrepreneur and 2004 season four winner on the show, now want voters to give Mr Trump the boot.