Johannesburg, Aug 20 : UN Rights chief Navi Pillay said that the conflict in the US town of Ferguson is a stark reminder of the racial violence triggered by apartheid in her native South Africa.

According to News 24, Navi Pillay, who is due to step down at the end of the month after six years in the UN hotseat, urged US authorities to investigate allegations of brutality and examine the "root causes" of racial discrimination in America.

Pillay condemned the "excessive" use of force by the police and called for the right of protest to be respected in an interview in her office.

She said the United States is a freedom-loving country and one thing they should cherish is people's right to protest.

She said that coming from apartheid South Africa, she has long experience of how racism and racial discrimination breeds conflict and violence.

The riots began eleven after police in Ferguson shot dead an unarmed African American teenager, Michael Brown.

The police earlier said that the boy was a suspected robber.

However, the Ferguson police later admitted that Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown, didn't know he was a suspect in a robbery case when he stopped the teen and shot him dead in Ferguson last Saturday. (ANI)