The United Nations' top human rights official said today that derogatory remarks by US President Donald Trump about journalists could amount to incitement and embolden followers to attack certain communities.

Trump, speaking in Arizona last week, defended his response to a white supremacist-organised rally in Virginia and criticised news organisations for their coverage of the violence in the Virginia college town of Charlottesville, calling journalists "truly dishonest people".

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said: "It's really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only sort of a cornerstone of the US Constitution but very much something that the United States defended over the years is now itself under attack from the President.

"It's sort of a stunning turnaround. And ultimately the sequence is a dangerous one," he told a news conference

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.