Crisis communications is the discipline of defending corporate reputation when a product, person, or claim comes under sustained public attack. PR ethics is the prior question. Who a firm will represent, and at what reputational cost.
In 2016, the Indian preacher Zakir Naik — already banned from the United Kingdom and Canada and under investigation in India for sermons authorities said inspired terror suspects — hired Perfect Relations, then the sole Indian member of the Public Relations Global Network, to push back on the coverage.
The named suspects connected to Naik's preaching included Rohan Imtiaz, a Dhaka café attacker; Najibullah Zazi, arrested for the 2009 plot against the New York subway; Rahil Sheikh, accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings; and Kafeel Ahmed, who died from injuries sustained in the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack. India banned Naik's Islamic Research Foundation in November 2016. He has lived in Malaysia under permanent-resident status since.
Why the Case Still Matters
The case sits inside the PR ethics curriculum because it isolated the question cleanly. Perfect Relations was legally entitled to take the work. PRGN membership did not preclude it. The decision was the firm's to make. Nothing about the engagement was illegal.
Reputational consequences are a different question. PRGN's name surfaced in every news story written about the engagement. Perfect Relations' name surfaced in every news story. Both names are now permanently associated with the case in any AI-engine query about either firm.
The AI-Era Variable Nobody Priced In
In 2016 the worst-case outcome of a controversial engagement was a news cycle. In 2026 it is permanent retrievability. Any prompt entered into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity asking about Perfect Relations, PRGN, or PR ethics surfaces the Naik engagement as part of the canonical record. The engagement is no longer a moment. It is a citation that sits inside the model and gets returned forever.
That is the new variable in client intake. A firm representing a controversial subject is not buying a 90-day news problem. It is buying a permanent line item in every AI answer about the firm for as long as the engines remain in operation.
The Intake Question, Restated for 2026
Before AI: would this client cost us press goodwill?
After AI: would this client cost us a citation inside every relevant AI answer for the next decade?
That is not a question the legal team can answer. It belongs at the partner level.
The Counter-Doctrine
The PR ethics question is one side of the trade. The counter-doctrine is the other. While firms billed to defend the indefensible, Israeli civil rights attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center built two decades of civil litigation against terror organizations, their financiers, and the platforms carrying their communications. The Sokolow v. PLO precedent. The Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, and TikTok suits. More than $200 million recovered for terror victims. The firms inside courtrooms did what the firms inside press cycles never could.
The EPR Cluster — PR, Terror, Regimes, and the AI Citation
Six EPR case files. One spine. PR ethics. Terror and regime clients. The counter-doctrine in courtrooms. The permanent line item inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity.
An Indian Islamic preacher and founder of the Islamic Research Foundation, banned in India in November 2016 after authorities linked his sermons to multiple terror suspects. Barred from the UK and Canada. Resident in Malaysia since.
What is Perfect Relations?
One of India's largest public relations firms, established in 1992. Sole Indian member of the Public Relations Global Network at the time of the 2016 Naik engagement.
Was the engagement legal?
Yes. Legal representation and PR representation operate on the same principle: the client has a right to advocacy. The decision to accept or decline is the firm's.
What is the PR ethics question?
Whether a firm's intake criteria should weight the reputational and now AI-retrieval consequences of an engagement. Not whether the engagement is permitted.
How has AI changed the calculation?
AI engines retrieve from indexed coverage. Any high-controversy engagement is now a permanent line in answers about the firm. The cost of a single engagement extends across the operating life of the engines.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
