There is no country which is free from discrimination, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay said on Thursday.

"We see intolerance and exclusion in national histories that deny the identity of others or reject rightful grievances of minorities who might not share a so-called official history," Pillay said at the Human Rights Day celebration in Pretoria.

She said that discrimination did not go away and had to be challenged at every turn, in communities, schools and workplaces.

"We must move forward and move quickly," she said.

Discrimination might appear as institutional racism, ethnic strife, or manifest itself in episodes of intolerance and rejection that escaped scrutiny.

Pillay said its victims were individuals or groups which were most vulnerable to attack because they were perceived as different because of their race, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion.

"These people are frequently excluded from fully participating in the life of a community, from its economic, political and social development."

She said new forms of xenophobia were on the rise particularly against refugees and migrants.

"Attacks against non-nationals in South Africa and elsewhere are gravely alarming."

Pillay said her office would launch a four-pronged project early next year to implement the Durban process blueprint (resulting from the 2001 World Conference against racism and discrimination held in Durban), strengthen the capacity of the commission and its legal services, and to counter racism and other forms of discrimination.

She said it was befitting that the Universal Human Rights celebration took place in South African, because South Africans knew about the torture of being denied rights, discriminated and inequality.