Balik Pulau: One woman has been arrested and more than a dozen are being sought by Malaysian authorities after images of a nudist sports festival triggered outrage in the Muslim-majority country, police said Friday.
A video of the gathering, called the "Nude Sport Games 2014", first appeared on social media earlier this week and went viral.
"A Malaysian woman was arrested Thursday to assist police in the investigation of the naked festival," Lai Fah Hin, local police chief in the northern state of Penang, told AFP.
Penang police chief Senior Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Abdul Rahim Hanafi said Wednesday that of the 15 participants seen in the video entitled "Penang Nude Sports Games", seven were Malaysian, while four were from Singapore.
"The remaining include one person from the Philippines, two from Myanmar, and one from India.
"Nine are male participants while the remaining six are female," he told reporters at the state contingent police headquarters in Penang Road here.
The video shows participants frolicking on a secluded Penang beach in late May, engaged in a range of activities including body painting, dancing, relay races and various other contests, all in the nude.
In one scene, a woman is seen riding horseback on a man, while in another, a woman crawls over three men lying next to each other in the sand.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said similar events, with people in the nude, have been held in other states over the past few years, but they did not draw much attention.
“There was a reality show by Discovery Channel in a Perak jungle and a Danish reality show on an island off Mersing, Johor, but none of these events went viral,” he said at a press conference yesterday.
Separately, a Penang National Park watchman, who was on duty when the nude event took place, is being questioned.
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