UN high commissioner compares Donald Trump and Nigel Farage to Isis
A top United Nations official has compared Nigel Farage and Donald Trump to terrorist outfit Isis.
In a stinging attack on "populists demagogues and political fantasists", Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN's high commissioner for human rights has deplored the likes of Farage, Trump and Marine Le Pen for spreading "half-truths, manipulations and peddling fear".
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Launching his attack on Dutch far-Right politician Geert Wilders and naming Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman, and Austrian Norbert Hofer alongside the triumvirate of Farage, Le Pen and Trump, Zeid said:
"Populists use half-truths and oversimplification – the two scalpels of the arch propagandist … In its mode of communication, its use of half-truths and oversimplification, the propaganda of Da’esh [Isis] uses tactics similar to those of the populists."
"The formula is therefore simple: Make people, already nervous, feel terrible, and then emhasise it's all because of a group, lying within, foreign and menacing. Then make your target audience feel good by offering up what is a fantasy to them, but a horrible injustice to others. Inflame and quench, repeat many times over, until anxiety has been hardened into hatred."
Watch: Farage addresses Trump rally
Both Le Pen, who leads the French far-right group, the National Front, and Trump had expressed solidarity with Farage and congratulated the former Ukip leader after the UK voted for Brexit in the EU referendum.
Last month Farage attended a Trump rally and delighted crowds by telling them he would not vote for Hillary Clinton if he could cast a ballot in November's presidential election.
Trump also curiously tweeted, "they will soon be calling me 'Mr. Brexit'" ahead of his meeting with Farage.