Brunei claims new laws punishing gay sex with death by stoning are ‘preventative’

Foreign minister claims criminalising ‘adultery and sodomy’ will ‘safeguard the sanctity of family lineage’

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, Brunei (Getty)

Brunei has said a new law introduced which includes punishing gay sex with stoning is intended to focus “more on prevention than punishment”.

Brunei’s foreign minister, Erywan Yusof, has claimed the punishments contained in the country’s newly-introduced Shariah Penal Code are designed “to educate, deter, rehabilitate and nurture rather than to punish”.

Brunei sparked global outrage by rolling out a harsh range of capital punishments, which also include death by stoning for adultery and amputation for theft.

Responding to the United Nations which called the measures “cruel and inhuman”, Mr Yusof reportedly defended the implementation of the Shariah Penal Code and tried to justify the punishments, which amount to torture.

In his letter to the UN, Mr Yusof said the move to criminalise “adultery and sodomy” would “safeguard the sanctity of family lineage and marriage of individual Muslims, particularly women”.

Amnesty International’s deputy director of global issues Stephen Cockburn said: “To legalise torture is sickening and callous in any circumstance. To do so as a preventive measure is also reckless.

“Likewise, to defend the threat of amputation and stoning as aiming to ‘rehabilitate and nurture’ is plainly absurd. Merely enacting such laws creates a toxic and threatening environment.

“The Brunei authorities must refrain from implementing them, must take necessary steps to repeal this unacceptable legislation, and bring it in line with international human rights laws and standards.”

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday he had spoken to the Bruneian foreign minister who suggested Sharia prosecutions were, in practice, “unlikely”.

Brunei has signed but not yet ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and has rejected all recommendations to this effect in its human rights review at the UN in 2014, Amnesty International said.

Under international human rights law, corporal punishment in all its forms – such as stoning, amputation or whipping – constitutes torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, which is prohibited in all circumstances.

Brunei’s Shariah Penal Code does not replace civil law but is expected to operate alongside it. It is understood each case requires an initial decision to determine whether it should be prosecuted under civil or Shariah law.

Under the new laws, offences including rape, adultery, sodomy, robbery and insult or defamation of the Prophet Muhammad carry the maximum penalty of death.

Lesbian sex is punishable by 40 strokes of a cane and/or a maximum of 10 years in jail. For theft, the maximum punishment is amputation.