Lawmaker apologises over Muslim rant
2013-02-13 15:02
Wellington - A New Zealand politician offered a qualified
apology on Wednesday for saying young Muslim men were a terrorist threat who
should be banned from flying on Western airlines.
After his remarks were condemned across the political
spectrum, Richard Prosser of the New Zealand First Party said he had failed to
acknowledge the vast majority of Muslims were law-abiding and did not support
extremism.
Prosser said his call for all males aged 19 to 35 who
were Muslim, looked Muslim, or came from Muslim countries, to be banned from
flights was too broad, but said he still supported "targeted
profiling" of airline passengers.
"I shouldn't have called for a blanket ban, I should
have called for an investigation into the merits of targeted profiling,"
he told Radio New Zealand, without elaborating.
"That was something I shouldn't have done and I'm
apologising for that."
However, he said he had no regrets about calling Islam a
"stone age religion" in a column published in the conservative
current affairs magazine Investigate.
"I was talking about Islam and I make no apology for
the fact that I don't have any time for people who denigrate women and I don't
have any time for institutions, whatever they might be, that suppress people's
human rights," he said.
Prosser also denied that a reference to people's rights
being "denigrated by a sorry pack of misogynist troglodytes from
'Wogistan'" was racist, saying "there are probably some people who
get upset too easily".
Prime Minister John Key has described Prosser's remarks
as appalling, while Islamic community groups have called for him to stand down
from parliament, something he says he will not do.
Former Labour Party politician Kelvin Davis responded to
Prosser's initial remarks with a tweet paraphrasing Mark Twain which read:
"Better to stay silent and have everyone think you're an idiot, than to
open your mouth and confirm it."
