Police || Six Japanese tourists were taken in for questioning by police at the weekend after they were identified as having been “taking photographs of children in bathing suits” on a crowded beach.
The tourists were seen at Nova beach, on the Caparica coast in Almada (near Lisbon).
What made beachgoers suspicious was the fact that all six men were fully clothed but taking photos right next to the water’s edge.
According to Correio da Manhã, it was children in their bathing suits that attracted the men’s attention most – and two women immediately retaliated.
Graça Florêncio, who works on the beach, sounded the alarm after being approached by a mother who asked her whether she thought it was “normal” for men to be taking photographs of children in this way. She complained to on-duty lifeguards, who then called the Maritime Police.
These said “it was a matter for the GNR” who “arrived a little later and took all the men away”, she told the paper.
Florência and the mother are now understood to be making a formal complaint to the Public Prosecutor.
Meantime, the six tourists were questioned by police for “some hours”, writes the paper, with at least one cellphone with images of the children being confiscated.
This is not the first time police have had to move in on men taking photographs of children on local beaches.
In May, a 35-year-old man was arrested in Cascais after being caught snapping images of children as their parents undressed them on the beach.
