KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 — Umno lawmaker Nur Jazlan Mohamed questioned today a recent suggestion from US President Barack Obama that the Malaysian government was marginalising its non-Muslim minorities by prolonging its Bumiputera preferential policy.

Taking a combative position, the Pulai MP noted that the western superpower too practised affirmative action policies towards its African-American population but which escaped being put under the world microscope, unlike Malaysia.

“Who is he talking about? Even in the US there is affirmative action for the blacks, but nobody publicised it,” Nur Jazlan said, when asked for his view on the visiting US president’s remarks yesterday that prejudices against people from different religions and races have no place in the modern world and must be removed.

“So who is being marginalised in Malaysia?” Nur Jazlan asked.

He continued, “Even if we have affirmative action, maybe he was referring to the Bumiputera policy.”

Nur Jazlan’s defence followed on the heels of earlier remarks today by his party colleague and Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who played down Obama’s statement during the latter’s two-day visit over the weekend.

Zahid, also Umno vice-president, said suggestions that non-Muslims are marginalised are a matter of perception.

“We have given equal chances to non-Muslims,” Zahid told reporters after an event.

Yesterday, during his first ever visit to the country, US president Barack Obama said Malaysia cannot flourish if non-Muslims are sidelined.

Obama also said that prejudices against people from different religions and races have no place in the modern world and must be removed.

“I don’t think there are obstacles to practising other religious beliefs,” Zahid said today.

He refused to be pressed on how non-Muslims can have equal opportunities given the government’s affirmative action policies for the country’s Bumiputera majority.

“I don’t want to respond to your question,” he said.

Malaysia, which is 60 per cent Malay-Muslim, has come under global scrutiny with a series of controversies affecting the rights of non-Muslims, most notably a government ban against Christians from referring to God as “Allah”.