Thursday 14 February 2013

NZ politician apologises for anti-Muslim slur

A New Zealand MP has apologized for anti-Muslim comments which sparked condemnation across the political spectrum.
In a magazine column, Richard Prosser said that young men who were Muslim, looked like Muslims, or came from Muslim countries, should be banned from flying on Western airlines because they posed a terrorist threat.
Today Mr Prosser said he had gone too far, and that the vast majority of Muslims were peaceful and law-abiding.
“I realize that’s caused offence to those people unjustifiably and unnecessarily and I’m apologizing to them unreservedly,” he said.
But the New Zealand First MP says there needs to be a debate about the merits of targeted profiling of air 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 apologizing 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.
Mr 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”.

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