Malaysians want detained Mt Kinabalu tourists punished
Western tourists who stripped naked on Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu a week before it was struck by a devastating earthquake face the prospect of fines according to indigenous law after locals blamed them for the tremor that has now killed 18 people.
A police report was filed against five of the 10 tourists and the deputy chief minister of Sabah state where the mountain is located has said he believes they caused the 6.0 magnitude earthquake at the weekend.
Kinabalu is considered a sacred mountain by the indigenous community in Sabah and they say the tourists’ actions angered its spirit.
The 10 foreigners, including two Canadians, two Dutch and a German, allegedly broke away from a larger group of tourists to take photographs of themselves standing naked on the mountain. The images were later posted on social media.
A local tribal priest, known as Bobolian, is demanding the tourists pay for 10 head of buffalo to be sacrificed to the mountain spirits, according to the Straits Times, while local Sabahans want action taken to punish the tourists.
A woman, suspected of being in the group who stripped off, was arrested as she attempted to leave East Malaysia at Tawau Airport.
One of the group who evaded the authorities remains unrepentant following a heated Twitter exchange with Sabah minister Masidi Manjun on Monday.
Tourist Emil Kaminski had called the minister an ‘idiot’ and accused him of ‘setting Malaysia back hundreds of years.’
Kaminski also been subjected to numerous vitriolic comments from Malaysians on social media including several death threats.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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