New Zealand First politician Richard Prosser has said all Muslim men are a terrorist threat who should be banned from Western airlines. Source: AFP
A New Zealand politician offered a qualified apology 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."
Earlier he said: "If you are a young male, aged between say about 19 and about 35, and you're a Muslim, or you look like a Muslim, or you come from a Muslim country, then you are not welcome to travel on any of the West's airlines," he wrote.
He added: "I will not stand by while my daughters' rights and freedoms, and those of other New Zealanders and Westerners, are denigrated by a sorry pack of misogynist troglodytes from 'Wogistan'."
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.
Mr Key said Mr Prosser, who has previously called for the burqa to be banned, had deliberately set out to offend in the column.
"It's stupid and it was premeditated because he wrote it in an opinion piece. It's clearly what New Zealand First think of other New Zealanders," he told reporters.
Former Labour Party politician Kelvin Davis responded to Mr Prosser's remarks with a tweet paraphrasing Mark Twain: "Better to stay silent and have everyone think you're an idiot, than to open your mouth and confirm it."
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