Brunei sultan returns Oxford degree after gay sex death penalty backlash

Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah handed back the honorary law degree on May 6, while Oxford University was reviewing its decision. (Reuters pic)

LONDON: Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has returned an honorary degree awarded by Britain’s Oxford University after a global backlash led by celebrities including George Clooney and Elton John for proposing the death penalty for gay sex and adultery.

Nearly 120,000 people had signed a petition by April calling on Oxford University to rescind the honorary law degree awarded in 1993 to the sultan, the world’s second-longest reigning monarch and prime minister of the oil-rich country.

Oxford University said the sultan had decided to hand back the honorary degree on May 6, while it was reviewing its decision to award it.

News of the decision was made public on Thursday.

“As part of the review process, the university wrote to notify the sultan on 26 April 2019, asking for his views by 7 June 2019,” the university said in an emailed statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Through a letter dated 6 May 2019, the sultan replied with his decision to return the degree.”

The small Southeast Asian country sparked an outcry when it rolled out its interpretation of Islamic laws on April 3, punishing sodomy, adultery and rape with death, including by stoning.

Seeking to temper the backlash, the sultan earlier this month said the death penalty would not be imposed in the implementation of the penal code changes.

The law, which the United Nations condemned, had prompted celebrities and rights groups to seek a boycott on hotels owned by the sultan, including the Dorchester in London and the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.

Several multinational companies have since put a ban on staff using the sultan’s hotels, while some travel companies have stopped promoting Brunei as a tourist destination.

Socially conservative attitudes prevail across Asia where Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore ban sexual relationships between men, and Indonesia has seen an increase in raids targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people recently.

Brunei, a former British protectorate of about 400,000 people nestled between two Malaysian states on Borneo island, was the first country in the region to adopt the criminal component of syariah at a national level in 2014. - FMT