Sultanate of Brunei to use Islamic law to punish homosexuals for death penalty

From Wednesday, The death penalty will weigh on all homobaduals in Bruneia small country in Southeast Asia with less than half a million inhabitants, one of the richest in the world. According to an Amnesty International complaint, the government of 72-year-old Sultan Hbadbad Bolkiah will finally begin to implement the chapters of the new criminal code based on Islamic law – Implemented in stages since 2014 – punishing the "crime" of being homobadual or bad murdered by stoningas in Saudi Arabia and in other theocratic dictatorships. The government has not yet confirmed or refused the announcement.

The new type of criminal is one of the propagandist "stars" of the Bolkiah Islamist turn, the absolutist monarch in power since his father's throne in 1967, with a fortune estimated at $ 16 billion. According to the constitution of Brunei, the sultan is infallible: "He can never be mistaken as an individual or in his official capacity". And as he is always right, he decided, five years ago, to launch a deep penal reform, which also includes Capital punishment for adultery and blasphemy against Islam. However, the article of the new law punishing homobaduals had not yet been put into effect because of international pressure.

Zina, defined in Article 68, "when a man and a woman have bad without being validly married".

Before this reform, the penal code was already used to persecute homobaduals, thanks to the criminalization of bad bad. In Article 377, it provided for a prison term of up to ten years imprisonment for "anyone who voluntarily has a carnal relationship against the natural order with a man, a woman or an animal" , stating in the next paragraph that "carnal access" is punishable, it should include penetration. However, this folly could worsen and the sultan decided to adapt his kingdom 's legislation to sharia law, the perverse Islamic law that among other serious human rights violations. man perpetrated in the name of Allah, courts formed by religious fanatics condemn homobaduals to the death penalty.

At the very beginning of the application of the new code, other absurd standards contrary to all international human rights treaties had already been applied. For example: imprisonment for those who have children outside of marriage, do not pray on Fridays, do not respect Ramadan and do not broadcast religions other than Islam. It was also forbidden to drink alcohol and celebrate Christmas in public.

Now, with the final phase of the reform, Article 82 of the new Code – which would replace the old 377 – introduced the crime of liwat, defined as "the badual relationship between a man and another man, or between a man and a woman other than his wife, perpetrated against the order of nature by the anus" . The law says that the punishment for this crime and the way it will be tried are the same as for the crime of zina, defined in Article 68: "when a man and a woman have bad without being validly married ".

The maximum penalty is death by stone, but there are other possibilities

In fact, the section of the code that deals with extramarital affairs and also serves as a model, because the punishment of homobaduals is quite broad and gives an idea of ​​the level of insanity of the new law promoted by Bolkiah. In Brunei, there is no parliament, but the sultan appointed a commission of religious fanatics to draft the laws. The wording of the new code is both hyper detailed and confusing. It is full of curious examples, almost infinite references between different sections and laws, religious terms and some explanations for dummies.

Liwat, defined as "the badual relationship between a man and another man, or between a man and a woman who is not his wife, carried out against the order of nature, by the anus ".

In the case of bad outside of marriage, there is for example a curious exception: the crime of zina is not punishable when a man and a woman have bad believing that they are married, but they are not. And this is explained as follows: "During the night, in the dark, A and B have bad. A thinks B is his wife and B thinks A is her husband, but in fact, B is not A's wife, or B's husband."As Article 82, which criminalizes homobaduality, refers to this other article without further details, we do not know how the law would be interpreted if a man, during the night in the dark , has relationships with another man who believes to be a woman and who is this woman is his wife.It's all like that surrealist.

The crimes of zina and liwatamong others, they may be punished with the death penalty, but not always. In the explanation of the crime of zina, used as a model to punish that of liwat, it is established that the sentences will be valid for Muslims and also for non-Muslims, if they have forbidden relations with a Muslim. If the defendant is Muslim and is a married man (and "consummated" marriage in bed), the death penalty is applied stoning, who should be badisted by a group of Muslims. If it's a only Muslim, or that he has not yet had any relations with his lawful wife, will be punished for one hundred lashes, also in the presence of a group of Muslims. But in both cases, the sentence may be less (amount of lashes and other years of imprisonment) depending on the type of evidence, since the trial is based on Islamic law, which is very different from what we mean by "lawsuits" Western democratic societies. For example, a high level of evidence is given when there are four witnesses or when the author confesses four times.

It is also softer for the accused under 15 years who have not reached puberty: thirty lashes and one detention in one "rehabilitation center" no more than three years when there is evidence of high standards. If he was convicted without so much evidence, the lashes are reduced to fifteen. In any case, the attempt to commit the crime is also taken into account, that is to say when the accused did not arrive before the penetration, but they went to bed in the same bed. And, finally, those who incite or help in one way or another to commit these "criminal" badual relations are punished.

The start-up the new homophobic legislation provoked repudiation reactions throughout the world. "To legalize these cruel and inhumane punishments is appalling in itself, some of the possible crimes should not even be considered as such, such as consensual bad between adults of the same bad," Amnesty International said, citing the words of its researcher Rachel Chhoa Howard. In the same vein, various international human rights bodies have been pronounced.

For its part, the actor George Clooney summoned a boycott of the nine luxury hotels that Sultan Hbadbad Bolkiah has in different cities of the United States and Europe: The Dorchester, 45 Park Lane and Coworth (United Kingdom); Beverly Hills and Bel-Air (United States); Meurice and Plaza Athénée (France); Eden and Principe di Savoia (Italy). "Whenever we stay, meet or dine in any of these hotels, we put money in the pockets of men who choose to pound or kill their own citizens because they are homobaduals or accused of adultery, "wrote Clooney. an article for the site Deadline.com