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Fugitive preacher Zakir Naik muted all across Malaysia

The controversial Islamic preacher apologised for making racially sensitive remarks after the police questioned him for hours over the comments on Monday.

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Fugitive preacher Zakir Naik has now been banned from delivering public talks across all states in Malaysia. The Malaysian police said on Tuesday that this was done in the interest of national security. The controversial Islamic preacher apologised for making racially sensitive remarks after the police questioned him for hours over the comments on Monday.

Naik, who faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India, has come under fire for comments that pitted Malaysia's ethnic and religious minorities against the predominantly Muslim Malay majority. He had said in a speech in Kota Baru city on August 3 that Hindus in Malaysia had "100 times more rights" than the Muslim minority in India, and that Malaysian Chinese were guests of the country. He had also reportedly said that Malaysian Hindus were more loyal to the Narendra Modi government in India than to their Malaysian prime minister.

On Sunday, Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that Naik had overstepped the line when he told ethnic Chinese to go back and questioned the loyalty of Malaysian-Indians in two separate instances, calling his words incendiary.

Naik was questioned for the second time under Section 504 of the Penal Code of the Malaysian law for the intentional insult with an intent to provoke a breach of peace. Naik, who has lived in Malaysia for about three years, insisted that he was not a racist. He said his comments were taken out of context and "strange fabrications" were added to them. "It was never my intention to upset any individual or community," he said on Tuesday.

—Zee Media Newsroom

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