Trump attacks freedom of the press

US President Donald Trump's criticism of journalists amounts to an attack on the freedom of the press and could provoke violence against reporters, the United Nations' human rights chief said yesterday.

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said Trump had also made worrying remarks about women, Mexicans and Muslims and went on to question the president's approach to immigration and decision to pardon former Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio.

"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," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said.

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

Referring to the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN, he added: "To call these news organisations 'fake' does tremendous damage and to refer to individual journalists in this way, I have to ask the question is this not an incitement for others to attack journalists?"