Donald Trump. Image: Gage Skidmore. Derived from Flickr.

Amnesty International has called out politicians who use divisive and dehumanized rhetoric in its annual report covering 159 countries.

Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty International said:

Politicians are shamelessly and actively legitimizing all sorts of hateful rhetoric and policies based on people’s identity: misogyny, racism and homophobia.

State of the World: politics of demonization and lack of global human rights leadership. https://t.co/375ut9xsYg pic.twitter.com/fPe1UEalUl

— AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) February 22, 2017

Shetty also said ‘2016 was the year when the cynical use of “us vs them” narratives of blame, hate and fear took on a global prominence to a level not seen since the 1930s.’

Leaders across the world are putting the politics of demonization into action. It's time for us to get in the way https://t.co/BtypIf4r3D pic.twitter.com/VSvOwLFn7X

— Salil Shetty (@SalilShetty) February 22, 2017

He pointed out that was the year Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were also mentioned in the report for using the ‘us versus them’ rhetoric in their leadership.

The Amnesty International 2016-17 full report can be found here.