US President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens from mainly Muslim countries is illegal and “mean-spirited”, the United Nations human rights chief Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein said on Monday. Zeid, who rarely communicates on Twitter, said in a tweet that “discrimination on nationality alone is forbidden under human rights law”, adding that “the US ban is also mean-spirited and wastes resources needed for proper counter-terrorism.”
Trump on Friday signed an executive order suspending the arrival of all refugees for at least 120 days, Syrian refugees indefinitely -- and barring citizens from Iran, Iraq, libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. The measures introduced a week after his inauguration were fiercely criticised over the weekend, although UN reactions were largely tepid.