However, despite admitting that his statement could have caused hurt if read "out of context", Wan Junaidi did not apologise for what he had said."If you read the sentence on its own, out of context, maybe it can be offending," Wan Junaidi said in Parliament today.
Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia agreed to the request to expunge the remarks from the Hansard.
Wan Junaidi made his request when responding to a motion by Chong Chieng Jen (DAP-Bandar Kuching) to refer Wan Junaidi to the Rights and Privileges Committee for his racist remarks.
"Maybe I overspoke the answer, but I am not racist. My wife is Chinese," Wan Junaidi said.
Chong said the decision to expunge the remark was equivalent to a retraction and as such, he accepted Wan Junaidi's decision.
Pandikar had earlier asked Wan Junaidi to state whether he would like to apologise or retract his statement.
Wan Junaidi faced a barrage of criticism last week for making the suggestion, but said today in Parliament that he uttered the statement because he had statistics to back up his claims.
“I have the statistics with me, I could read it out if you want to,” he said, referring to statistics regarding how many under-16 non-Malays have children out of wedlock and the amount of police reports lodged in comparison.
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