I wrote about this a bit over a month ago, and now I think it’s only fair to provide a (positive) update.
In 2014 the small, oil-rich country of Brunei introduced sharia law, and they’ve been progressively rolling out more laws ever since.
The latest controversy came in early April, as adultery and gay sex became punishable by being stoned to death. So while we’ve known this was coming since 2014, the implementation was only supposed to start as of last month.
This caused widespread international boycotts, both of the country, and also of the Dorchester Collection, which the sultan owns.
While I think the boycott was the right idea, to be honest I thought it was a near sure bet that it wouldn’t have any impact, given just how rich the sultan is. But it seems to have worked, at least somewhat. Today Brunei’s sultan has announced that the country won’t be punishing gay sex and adultery with death after all:
“I am aware that there are many questions and misperceptions with regard to the implementation of the [law]. However, we believe that once these have been cleared, the merit of the law will be evident. As evident for more than two decades, we have practiced a de facto moratorium on the execution of death penalty for cases under the common law. This will also be applied to cases under the [law] which provides a wider scope for remission.”
This isn’t exactly much of an admission of wrongdoing (according to the sultan the problem is our misconceptions!), though it’s still better than nothing.
On the one hand, I’m pleasantly surprised that a boycott actually worked in some way in this case. On the other hand, obviously everyone is also saying “now do more.”
As the director of the HRC says:
“HRC notes reports that the Sultan of Brunei has declared a moratorium on the death penalty, and while this is an important step we continue to call on him to repeal this draconian law in its entirety and uphold all Brunei’s commitments under international law. The world has turned its eyes to Brunei in recent months and we urge the countless advocates, activists and organizations who seized this moment to speak out against these human rights abuses to continue to do so. The Trump-Pence administration has so far been silent and must finally join the chorus of voices calling for repeal.”
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