French tourists arrested for nude photos at Cambodia’s Angkor

This photo taken on Nov. 8, 2014, shows tourists taking photos of the Angkor Wat temple complex at sunrise in Cambodia’s Angkor National Park, Siem Reap province. AFP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Three French tourists have been arrested by Cambodian authorities for taking nude photos of each other inside the country’s famed Angkor temple complex, officials said Friday.

The male tourists were discovered inside the Banteay Kdei temple at the world heritage site on Thursday, said Chau Sun Kerya, spokesperson for the Apsara Authority,  the government agency managing the Angkor complex.

“The temple is a worship site and their behavior is inappropriate. They were nude,” she said.

Keat Bunthan, a senior heritage police official in northwestern Siem Reap province, confirmed the nationalities of the arrested and said many Cambodians would be offended by the tourists’ actions.

“Their activities affect our culture. Nobody should take nude pictures at ancient temples,” he said.

The Apsara Authority said in a statement that the three tourists have “admitted they really made a mistake by taking nude pictures.”

The agency added Cambodian police were building a case against them.

The tourists were caught just days after a series of photos of Asian women posing nude at ancient Cambodian temples went viral online and outraged officials.

The Angkor Archaeological Park, a world heritage site, contains the remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, dating from the 9th to the 15th century and is Cambodia’s most popular tourist destination.