A United Nations panel decried on Wednesday President Donald Trump’s response to this month’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, underscoring that it was “disturbed by the failure at the highest political level of the United States of America to unequivocally reject and condemn the racist violent events and demonstrations”.

In an unusual decision released on Wednesday but dated Aug 18, the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination warned of “the example this failure could set for the rest of the world”, most major publications including the Huffington Post and The New York Times reported.

The United Nations panel without mentioning Trump by name but assailing “the government of the United States of America, including the high-level politicians and public officials”, the committee members urged the US “not only to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and racist crimes in Charlottesville and throughout the country, but also to actively contribute to the promotion of understanding, tolerance, and diversity between ethnic groups, and acknowledge their contribution to the history and diversity of the United States of America”.

The UN committee wrote the strong condemnation under its “early warning and urgent action procedures”.

The UN committee also urged US leaders to “identify and take concrete measures to address the root causes of the proliferation of such racist manifestations, and thoroughly investigate the phenomenon of racial discrimination targeting in particular against people of African descent, ethnic or ethno-religious minorities, and migrants”.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017