Canadian siblings await obscenity investigation
JAILED: Native Courts investigate photo on sacred mountain
Two Saskatchewan siblings detained in Malaysia must wait as authorities spend four days investigating their alleged crime of obscenity: posing naked for a photograph on the peak of the sacred Mount Kinabalu and angering its spirit guardians into triggering an earthquake that killed 18 mountaineers.
On Wednesday, video surfaced of four in the group of 10 young backpackers exiting a police station in Sabah, donning purple jumpsuits and shielding their faces from the cameras. Investigating officer Asp Japri Abdul Halim told reporters the Westerners would be held in central lockup in nearby Kepayan until Saturday, when the Native Courts will decide whether charges are warranted. The backpackers could face up to three months in prison.
A friend who was backpacking with Lindsey and Danielle Petersen two days before they departed for Malaysia says his small-town Saskatchewan friends were “sensible” travellers who would never knowingly offend a local custom or cause any kind of disturbance. He said that, from the photos his friends posted online from the shoot atop Mount Kinabalu, there was no flagrant nudity on the part of the Petersens.
“I do believe they’ve not committed any offence in what they’ve done. They didn’t knowingly offend the group of people,” Phillip Gourley told the National Post from Taiwan on Wednesday. “Obviously, the disaster that happened, the earthquake is extremely unfortunate, but if that is believed locally to be the cause of the earthquake that’s not something Lindsey or Danielle would have known about.”
He first met the Petersens at a hostel in Indonesia, where they shared a room and then travelled to Bali, scuba diving, and taking in the sights. Lindsey and Danielle were excited to get to the Malaysian island of Borneo to do their very first mountain trek.
Gourley describes them as “really well-behaved” — miles apart from the image being beamed out in the media. “They were super funny but they weren’t necessarily ones to go streaking,” he said.
The Petersens shared their experience of the mountain trek on Facebook shortly thereafter, and mentioned taking a photo on the 4,095-metre peak — the highest between the Himalayas and New Guinea. But the photo they posted, Gourley said, would have caused “zero offence.”
It showed the group of 10, having just hiked up the mountain in 30 C heat, wearing only their underwear. Their backs were to the camera and their hands thrown up in celebration for having conquered the climb.
“It was a completely sensible photograph, nothing indecent.”
A Malaysian newspaper report said the group ignored their guide’s objections when they stripped off their clothes.