A Tiny Nation’s Imposition Of Death By Stoning For Homosexuality Could Have Wider Reverberations

Brunei’s Sultan has instituted Sharia law.

J. Lester Feder
BuzzFeed Staff

Miriam Berger
BuzzFeed Staff

This is the tiny country of Brunei, which lies on the island of Borneo, cut from part of Malaysia. Brunei was a big regional player in the 15th century; today the territory is a little smaller than Delaware and population around 422,000.



Brunei was a British protectorate until 1984, when it was established as a monarchy headed by the sultan. The constitution also declares Islam the country’s official religion with the sultan as the country’s religious leader.

In October 2013, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah proposed imposing Sharia law in the country’s penal code; changes would include sentencing people to death for homosexuality or adultery, and the amputation of limbs as punishment for theft.

Attention to the issue rose in the U.S. when LGBTI rights supporters began boycotts of hotels owned personally by the sultan in Los Angeles. Human rights organizations and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also denounced the provision.

“Under international law, stoning people to death constitutes torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is thus clearly prohibited,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights last month.

He noted that “a number of U.N. studies have also revealed that women are more likely to be sentenced to death by stoning” and that “the criminalization and application of the death penalty for consensual relations between adults in private also violates a whole host of rights, including the rights to privacy, to equality before the law, the right to health and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.”

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