3. Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights arriving at news conference
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Nils Muiznieks, Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights:
"The debate surrounding Brexit was very scary because you had racist rhetoric about migrants and migration from the highest political levels in the UK months ago. We wrote a long memorandum to the UK government on this, on migration policy but specifically on the language that they are using, which is very stigmatizing towards migrants. But then in the run-up to the referendum itself, the last two months in particular, you had a huge spike in hate speech."
5. Close-up of pen in Muiznieks' hand
6. Journalist at news conference
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Nils Muiznieks, Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights:
"And what did it lead to? It lead to a huge spike in hate crimes and hate incidents right after the referendum. So words matter. Discourse matters. It sends signals of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behaviour and we saw In the UK the consequence of this discourse which got out of control. And my concern is it sent a signal to right-wing populists all over Europe about the ease which with one can manipulate this discourse for political gain."
A top European human rights official has described the use of anti-migrant rhetoric by some British politicians ahead of the 23 June referendum on European Union membership as "out of control."
Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that it could make the use of racist language more acceptable across continent.
Speaking during a visit to Greece on Friday, Muiznieks said that the rhetoric used in Britain had been "very scary."
Migration was a central issue during the referendum campaign before British voters opted to leave the EU.
Muiznieks said he was also worried about the language against migrants being used by politicians in Hungary ahead of a 2 October referendum there on EU settlement quotas.
