Islamic preacher and Mumbai-based tele-evangelist Dr Zakir Naik on Tuesday announced that he was initiating legal proceedings against an exclusion order passed by Britain last week. The order,revoking a five-year British visa issued in 2008,cited earlier comments made by the speaker that were allegedly inflammatory and not conducive to the public good. The order was delivered to Naik last Thursday,a day before he was scheduled to go to Britain for a series of lectures on peace. I have hired a battery of lawyers, Naik,44,said at a press conference,joined by filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and lawyer Majeed Memon. A judicial revision to the order would be sought in the High Court of London,he said,adding that he would also approach the Indian PMO and the Ministry of External Affairs for their support in revoking the ban on his entry into Britain. Naik also alleged that the decision to disallow his entry into Britain,a country he has visited twice since 2008,appeared to be a political decision rather than a legal one,taken by the newly elected government. Naik,president of the Islamic Research Foundation in Mumbai,read out four extracts from his earlier speeches,all delivered before his visa was issued in July 2008,that were cited in his exclusion order. Referencing the statements to the context he made them in,he maintained that he had either been misquoted or quoted out of context. One of the passages cited in the order,in which he makes a reference to Osama Bin Laden,was sourced from a YouTube video dated 2006,but actually belonged to a speech he made in Singapore in 1996,he said. If he is fighting the enemies of Islam,I am for him. If he is terrorising the terrorist,if hes terrorising America the terrorist. hes following Islam, the extract quotes him as saying. Arguing that the lecture was delivered five years before the 9/11 attack,Naik said he doesnt have the rushes of the speech recording,nor any knowledge if it was edited. Whether I said it or not I dont know, he said,adding that he has always unequivocally condemned acts of terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians,whether it was New York (9/11),London (7/7) or Mumbai (26/11). Majeed Memon said the rash order was unlikely to stand in a court of law,not only because it quotes Naik out of context,but also because the manner in which it was passed on June 16 and delivered a day before Naiks scheduled departure,showed great hurry. It is an ex-parte and unilateral order. It does not give Dr Naik the opportunity to show cause. This is barbaric, he said,adding that the last allegedly objectionable statements were made in 2006,two years before he was granted a visa in July 2008.
