Mooning in a foreign country may land you in jail, as one Irish student learnt the hard way, writes Rosita Boland.
Some customs do not travel well. The bafflingly popular and long-standing tradition - particularly among young men - of mooning in public has got an Irish teenager into a lot of trouble in Senegal. Patrick Devine (19), a student from the village of Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal, is currently in a Senegalese jail. On July 27th, he was arrested after mooning near the home of a Senegalese governor in Saint Louis, reportedly on a dare.
Devine, an engineering student at Queen's University, Belfast, was spending the summer working with street children, as part of a Teaching and Projects Abroad scheme organised by the college. His arrest was the latest in a series of misfortunes in Senegal; he had also contracted chicken pox and picked up an infection so severe that half of one of his toes had to be amputated. His arrest came at the end of what he had described in his profile on social networking site Bebo as "the worst week of his life". Since then, Devine's Bebo page (ironically, his profile name is "lazyassdevine"), with photographs of him in Senegal, has been viewed more almost 13,000 times, with many people posting their comments on his antics.
While some posters took a poor view of Devine's behaviour, the majority thought it all excellent fun indeed, with "legend" being the most commonly used word to describe him.
"Reading your story over my morning coffee made me laugh and I just wanted to thank you for being the height of too much-ery, and making millions of Irish people giggle at once!"
"You will look back and be proud of yourself in years to come. This is an achievement more impressive than earning a college degree."
It appears that Devine was dared to moon by people in his volunteer group. A local man observed the incident and called the police, while detaining the group in the meantime. Devine was arrested, and has been in custody ever since.
Initially, he was held in a cell with what is reported to be up to 40 other men. He has since been moved to the corrective prison. Yesterday, a judge deferred his bail hearing until next Friday,meaning that he will have to spend at least another week behind bars. Members of his family from Dunfanaghy, where his parents run a pub, are in Senegal. The Department of Foreign Affairs is involved, and this week, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern warned that Irish students are increasingly needing assistance following bad behaviour abroad.
Senegal isn't the only country where mooning tourists have been arrested for their behaviour. In 2003, British tourist Matthew Maloney (20), who had been drinking all day in the Greek resort of Faliraki, unwisely mooned on a street in front of a policeman. He was given a choice of a year in jail on Kos, or paying a fine of €3,100. He paid up.
Earlier this year, Swiss national Oliver Jufer (57) was pardoned by Thailand's King Bhumibol, and released from Chang Mai prison in Northern Thailand two weeks after being sentenced to 20 years in jail. Like Maloney, excessive alcohol had also played a role in his behaviour. While drunk, he had sprayed insulting graffiti across posters of the King, thus breaking the country's lèse majesté law, which forbids insult of any kind to the Thai king. The maximum jail sentence for this crime is 75 years.
Unsurprisingly, possession of illegal drugs aside, inappropriate behaviour brought on by binge drinking is the main reason why tourists abroad get arrested. This month, the British Foreign Office published a report which showed how Prague's popularity with hen and stag parties has made the Czech Republic one of the 10 countries worldwide where Britons seek the most consular help. Getting arrested, being hospitalised, losing passports or simply forgetting where their hotel is located were the chief reasons why British tourists look for help. British consular staff in Prague reported that they frequently get woken in the middle of the night by very drunk, very lost tourists looking for their missing hotels.
On some occasions, you can get arrested abroad for simply taking photographs in sensitive locations. In most countries, military bases are usually highly protected areas and tourists rarely get near them. In 2001, a group of 12 British and two Dutch plane-spotters were arrested and charged with spying after taking photographs of an airshow at a military base in southern Greece.
They were all held for six weeks in a Greek prison before being released on bail, pending a trial in 2002. Although it was widely expected that they would be cleared, eight of the group were found guilty of spying, and sentenced to three years in jail.
The other six were convicted of aiding and abetting, and were given a one-year suspended sentence. They all appealed and their sentences were overturned.
Meanwhile, Patrick Devine awaits release from his Senegalese prison. It's probably fair to assume he'll be keeping his trousers firmly belted in the future.