Signboard, circular for tourists on dos and don’ts
A new multilingual signboard and a circular to serve as reminder are the expected actions to be taken after two tourists danced in public in front of the Kota Kinabalu City Mosque, said Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Christina Liew.
Liew said the ministry will not reprimand the yet-to-be identified tour operator, and the incident will serve as a wake-up call for further measures to be taken to ensure such incidence does not happen again in Sabah.
“We are still trying to identify the tour operator and the company. We need to advise them,” she said after the Chief Minister’s gathering with federal and state civil servants at the Sabah State Administrative Centre (PPNS) yesterday.
“We will work with the management of the mosque to put up a signboard there in two or three languages. Maybe in Chinese or English to advise tourists that this is a holy place of worship and they must not do things or carry themselves in such a manner that will be offensive and show disrespect to the religion and its religious house.
“This incident is an eye opener. Let’s hope that such incidences will not happen again,” Liew said.
“There are two approaches (to this matter), we hope to erect a signboard and we hope to issue a circular via MATTA (Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents), via all the relevant organizations so that this will not happen again.
“(I) understand that similar incidents have happened on Mount Kinabalu two, three years ago. Right now, even if we identify who are the people and the tour operator, we are not thinking about charging them like in the Mount Kinabalu (incident), but we don’t want this same thing to happen again,” she stressed.
Liew said the circular would impress upon tour operators to ensure that tourists visiting Sabah understand that such behavior is off limits at places of worship.
“This doesn’t only apply to mosques only, (but) to all religious bodies. We are trying to do this, we don’t want to do or take such a drastic action that will alarm the tourists, but we still need to remind them that this is unacceptable conduct,” she told reporters.
“They may not know what’s going on. They may think it is fun, but it is not. They have to respect that this is a place of worship and they are not to do that,” said Liew.
On Sunday, the management of the Kota Kinabalu City Mosque decided to close its doors to tourists for the time being, with immediate effect after the indecent behaviour of the tourists and their antics went viral on social media.