LOS ANGELES — Hollywood is responding to
harsh new laws in the tiny Southeast Asia nation of Brunei by boycotting the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The Motion Picture & Television Fund joined a growing list of organizations and individuals Monday refusing to do business with hotels owned by the Sultan or government of Brunei. They’re protesting the country’s new Islamic Shariah criminal law that calls for punishing adultery, abortions and same-sex relationships with flogging and stoning.
Others boycotting the Sultan’s Dorchester Collection of hotels include Richard Branson’s Virgin Group; the Hollywood Reporter, which traditionally holds a starry media breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel; and the Feminist Majority Foundation, which moved its annual Global Women’s Rights Awards on Monday from the Beverly Hills Hotel to the nearby Hammer Museum.
Branson tweeted over the weekend that no member of his staff would stay at any Dorchester Collection hotel “until the Sultan abides by basic human rights.”
Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who owns the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air, has praised his country’s new laws as a “great achievement.”
“The decision to implement the (Shariah penal code) is not for fun but is to obey Allah’s command as written in the Quran,” the sultan said last week.
Brunei, a conservative country where alcohol is banned and Muslim courts already govern family affairs, began phasing in its version of Shariah that allows for penalties such as amputation for theft and stoning for adultery. Most of the punishments can be applied to non-Muslims, who account for about one-third of the 440,000 people in the oil-rich country. The most severe punishments — flogging, amputation and stoning — are to be introduced over the next two years.
Source: LGBTQNATION, May 5, 2014
