The small South East Asian nation of Brunei has had a change of heart on its strict new laws introduced in April to make gay sex and adultery punishable by stoning to death.
A moratorium on the death penalty was announced by Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah yesterday, following on from a major global backlash over the extreme laws.
The backlash included boycotts and celebrity protests led by big names such as George Clooney, Ellen DeGeneres and Elton John.
Image: The Telegraph
The laws applied to Muslims, non-Muslim and foreigners including when travelling on Brunei registered aircraft and vessels.
This saw a number of big players in the travel industry such as Virgin Australia and STA Travel part ways with Royal Brunei Airlines.
Brunei’s Sultan delivered a speech yesterday where he addressed that there had been “many questions and misperceptions” regarding the new laws known as Syariah Penal Code Order (SPCO).
Despite confirming a moratorium on the death penalty would be applied to the SPCO, it was clear the Sultan was not personally against the laws, commenting that their “merit” would become clear.
Image: Shutterstock
The death penalty is still permitted for some crimes in Brunei, including premeditated murder and drug trafficking.
Homosexuality was already illegal in Brunei before these new laws were put forward and are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Despite the backlash, there has been some support and sympathy for the people of Brunei, with some sources raising the point that many other Muslim countries have similar rules in place.
While not necessarily high on people’s list of travel destinations, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran and Mauritania also allow for the death penalty in these instances.
Image: bvi4092/Flickr
Homosexual activity is in fact, illegal to some extent in 71 countries, according to Equaldex, a crowdsourced site that tracks legal protections to the LGBTQ community. In some countries, only homosexual activities between men are illegal. Other countries have laws criminalising homosexuality on the books but do not enforce them.
The coming days and weeks will certainly be interesting for tourism to Brunei in terms of a response to the change of heart.
- READ: BRUNEI: The hotels travellers are being told to boycott as new anti-LGBTQ law goes into effect
- READ: BOYCOTT CONTINUES: STA Travel parts ways with Royal Brunei Airlines