“Cowardly” comments about burkas are “emboldening” Islamophobic hate crime perpetrators, the Muslim Council of Wales has warned.

Gareth Bennett, new leader of UKIP in the Senedd, has said women wearing the veil are “apparitions of pre-medieval culture”.

He said he stood by the comments which came after a UKIP assembly employee compared the veil to the Ku Klux Klan.

The Muslim Council of Wales said the comments fuelled hatred.

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Christine Hamilton, the wife of UKIP AM Neil Hamilton who works as his assembly diary manager, sparked backlash after posting a tweet on Friday reading “If the #burka is acceptable then presumably this is too?” accompanied by a picture of the members of the KKK in their hoods.

She later said her tweet had been misunderstood and she had not meant to compare Muslim women with white supremacists. She has been approached by BBC Wales for comment.

In an interview with ITV Wales on Sunday, Mr Bennett said seeing people wearing burkas in Wales made him feel uncomfortable as it was an “alien culture”.

He said it showed an unwillingness to integrate and called for a debate on the issue, adding: “It feels like I’m in Saudi Arabia but in Cardiff, in Canton.”

“It’s certainly not a pleasant feeling for many people in Britain, who are British and regard themselves as having British values, to be confronted by these apparitions which seem to be of some kind of pre-medieval culture,” he said.

Both Mr Bennett and Mrs Hamilton made the comments while responding to the row over Boris Johnson’s recent remarks in a newspaper article.

Dr Abdul-Azim Ahmed, Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Wales said the comments were “cowardly” and fuelled hatred.

He said: “The unhealthy focus on the clothing of Muslim women is disturbing and undemocratic, it emboldens hate crime, further marginalises public participation of religious minorities, and is a cowardly attack on Muslim women largely denied the public platform used by their attackers.

“We call on all politicians, from all parties, to resist the creeping fascism entering British and Welsh politics.”

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But, in a statement Mr Bennett, who has previously blamed litter problems in Cardiff on immigrants, told BBC Wales he stood by his comments.

“If we are continually silenced and closed down by the shrill voices of minority group lobbyists then our right to free speech will gradually be destroyed”, said the AM who was voted in as UKIP’s new group leader on Friday after a ballot.

“I pledge to fight to uphold the rights of the majority to enjoy freedom of speech.”