UN experts: Charlottesville exemplifies rising racism in US

People stand in solidarity with the victims in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a vigil at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Memorial Statue in North Las Vegas, Nevada, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. Protesters decrying hatred and racism converged around the country on Sunday, saying they felt compelled to counteract the white supremacist rally that spiraled into deadly violence in Virginia. (Photo by ELIZABETH BRUMLEY / Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

GENEVA — UN human rights experts say racism and xenophobia are rising in the United States, pointing to far-right demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the latest examples and urging US authorities to punish the perpetrators of racist crimes there.

The three experts on the issues of racism, discrimination and the rights of people of African descent are seeking an independent investigation into the deadly events in Charlottesville.

The experts said they were “deeply concerned at the proliferation and increasing prominence of organized hate and racist groups” in the US, insisting in a statement Wednesday that racist hate speech “must be unequivocally condemned.”

They said far-right demonstrators chanted anti-Black, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant slogans, saying the violence in Charlottesville was “the latest examples of increasing racism, racial discrimination, Afrophobia, racist violence and xenophobia” in the US.