Amnesty International has found hate-filled rhetoric and policies of governments around the world - including in Australia and the US - have risen in the last year, giving license to bigotry and discrimination against already marginalised groups.
The non-profit organisation's State of the World's Human Rights report, released on Thursday, comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and US President Donald Trump are set to meet in Washington DC on Saturday.
The report pointed to instances of discrimination against minority groups in Australia in 2017.
Hate 'inflamed in Australia'
“Over the last year hate has been inflamed in Australia,” National Director of Amnesty International Australia Claire Mallinson said in a statement.
“Verbal attacks on communities of African origin have led to instances of hate speech and physical attacks against those communities."
"In 2017 in Australia there was reportedly a 39 per cent increase in anti-semitic threats. LGBTQI people - and their children - sustained months of homophobic abuse during the unnecessary marriage equality postal vote.”
The report criticised the Australian justice system's continuing failure of Indigenous people, especially children.
"The over-representation of Indigenous people in the Australian justice system isn't getting any better," Ms Mallinson said. "And for Indigenous kids ... it's truly awful.
Children are 25 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous children and Indigenous adults were 15 times more likely to be jailed than non-Indigenous adults in 2017. At least eight Indigenous people died in police custody.
The report also condemned Australia's "brutal" immigration policies impacting those in offshore processing centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, saying more than 300 refugees and asylum seekers had been subjected to "humiliation, neglect, abuse, and poor physical and mental health care."
The Australian government was encouraged to do more for those in need.
"At the moment what we're seeing is more people fleeing crisis situations and war in countries like Syria and Myanmar ... 22 million, that's bigger than ever before," Ms Mallinson said.
It criticised Australia's reduced humanitarian intake of 16,250 for the financial year beginning in June.
"We've [Australia] just been elected to the Human Rights Council," the report said, encouraging the intake to be increased to 30,000.
US failings under Trump
The report found the number of hate groups in the US rose to 954 last year under President Donald Trump, up four per cent.
The rise was reportedly fuelled by Mr Trump's anti-immigration stance and the perception he sympathised with white supremacists.
"The efforts of US President Donald Trump to ban entry to all citizens of several Muslim-majority countries based on their nationality was a transparently hateful move," the report said.
It comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in Washington ahead of his meeting with Mr Trump on Saturday.
Ms Mallinson said it was an opportunity for the prime minister to "demonstrate leadership on the global stage".
"This begins with calling out hate and prejudice, and committing to the freedoms that Australians once held dear. And there's no better place to start than with his meeting with President Trump,” Ms Mallinson said.
“Their meeting has been described as marking 100 years of ‘mateship’: well, true ‘mates’ have the courage to set each other straight when they are steering off course.”
Rohingya crisis a 'hateful reality'
Amnesty International's report covered 159 countries and territories and claims to be the most comprehensive analysis of human rights available. It paid particular attention to the "appaling injustices" of the Rohingya refugee crisis.
Mr Mallinson told SBS News: "We've certainly seen throughout 2017 hateful rhetoric turn into suddenly hateful reality".
"But one of the most horrific examples is the situation for the Rohingya, and the Myanmar campaign of ethnic cleansing, which has driven hundreds of thousands of women, children and men, from their homes, fleeing in terror over the border into Bangladesh."
More than 700,000 people have fled Myanmar since August last year, with 500,000 living in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
