Story highlights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called Trumps retweet "foolish"

He also condemned nationalism and populism more broadly

(CNN) The United Nations' top human rights official was "aghast" over President Donald Trump's decision to re-tweet anti-Muslim videos from the far-right ultra nationalist group Britain First last week, offering a robust rebuke of nationalist and populist leaders.

"It seemed to be so foolish," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein told CNN's Elise Labott during a Capitol Hill roundtable discussion for the UN Foundation. "Or it seemed to be driven by a sense of purpose."

"And why take us to a place where what can accrue from this is immense violence?" he asked. "We've been there before."

Al Hussein also condemned nationalism and populism more broadly, saying the international human rights framework, put in place after World War II and the Holocaust, "is under immense stress at the moment" from authoritarian leaders and terrorist groups, but also populist politicians in the west. He derided an increasingly popular school of thought in the western world that suggests human rights efforts have been ineffective and should therefore be tossed aside.

The commissioner -- a former Jordanian ambassador to the United States and United Nations, who has been vocal in calling out abuses in the Middle East as well as other regions of the world -- pointed out tens of millions of people died in two world wars and the Holocaust before the international community came together to develop the Human Rights Declaration, and suggested the world is at risk of returning to the nation-centric dynamic of the early 20th century that allowed that violence to happen.

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