“The Nazi media described people their masters wanted to eliminate as rats and cockroaches. This type of language is clearly inflammatory and unacceptable, especially in a national newspaper. The Sun’s editors took an editorial decision to publish this article, and – if it is found in breach of the law – should be held responsible along with the author”
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged British authorities to use the law to clamp down on “vicious verbal assault on migrants and asylum seekers in the UK tabloid press.”
He was commenting on controversial columnist Katie Hopkins’ column in the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun newspaper.
“The Nazi media described people their masters wanted to eliminate as rats and cockroaches. This type of language is clearly inflammatory and unacceptable, especially in a national newspaper,” Mr Hussein added. “The Sun’s editors took an editorial decision to publish this article, and – if it is found in breach of the law – should be held responsible along with the author.”
Hussein said the reality television star had used language in her Sun column similar to that used by newspapers and radio stations in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide that led to hundreds of thousands of people being slaughtered.
In the wake of a capsizing in which 700 migrants are believed to have drowned,Hopkins wrote a piece entitled ‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants’ in which she likened those feeling war-torn nations to “cockroaches” and called for them to be turned away with force.
Hopkins wrote in the Sun last week that the UK should use gunships to send migrant boats home, adding: “Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches. They might look a bit ‘Bob Geldof’s Ethiopia circa 1984’, but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb.”
Since then, more than 400,000 people have signed an online petition urging the newspaper to sack her.
The former Apprentice and Celebrity Big Brother star used her column in the newspaper on Friday to address her previous remarks, saying it had been a “cautionary tale”.
She wrote: “I am reminded of the power of the pen. One should be brave enough to speak out – but aware of the dangers which lurk in the depths of our vocabulary.
“No one wants to see images of children drowned at sea, no matter what their journey or their destination. The next time you are thinking of clicking on a petition, don’t be angry about words.
“Accept our opinions differ. Channel your outrage at the regimes causing people to flee. And be part of the solution.”
A Sun spokesman said she and the paper would not be commenting further.