The world is faced with a troubling rise of intolerance against minorities and foreigners, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday in a message to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“It would be a dangerous error to think of the Holocaust as simply the result of the insanity of a group of criminal Nazis,’’ he said.
Instead, it was the end point of long-lasting scapegoating and discrimination against Jews, he said, adding that anti-Semitism continues to thrive.
“We are also seeing a deeply troubling rise in extremism, xenophobia, racism and anti-Muslim hatred. Irrationality and intolerance are back,’’ Guterres said.
The world must never react to suffering with indifference, and it must bring human rights violators to justice, he added.