Nearly 400 hundred people rallied outside the Dorchester Hotel in London on Saturday 6 April to protest against Brunei’s enactment of death by stoning for homosexuality, adultery and insulting the prophet Mohammad.
At one point, they broke through the hotel’s barriers and peacefully besieged the front doors, shouting ‘F*ck the Sultan’ and demanding he rescind the death penalty.
«Hundreds of rainbow-coloured stones were dumped on the hotel’s steps and anti-Sultan slogans were scrawled on the forecourt. A rainbow flag was hoisted on the hotel’s veranda, to ecstatic cheers from the crowd», said Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, who helped Benali Hadamache of the LGBTIQA+ Greens co-ordinate the protest.
«The Sultan is enforcing the same barbaric stonings enacted by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. He is comparable to the ISIS fanatics who executed people for gay sex during their murderous caliphate. Stoning is a particularly cruel, barbaric form of punishment, deliberately designed to cause a slow agonising death. It violates international human rights law. Brunei should be now treated as a pariah state, just like ISIS was», added Mr Tatchell.
«Brunei needs to be isolated by governments and consumers worldwide through a combination of boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions. We need to show the Sultan that his brutal, inhuman policies have a financial cost. Our goal is to hit him in the pocket where it hurts».
«We are calling for a global boycott of all businesses owned by the Sultan and his regime, including the Dorchester Hotel and Royal Brunei Airlines.
«It is time that hotel booking agencies – such as Expedia, Trivago, Kayak, Lastminute.com and Booking.com – stopped advertising rooms in the Sultan’s hotels worldwide».
«All countries should suspend diplomatic, economic and military relations with Brunei until these extremist Sharia punishments are revoked».
«The UK royal family must stop hosting the Sultan and cut all ties with his despotic regime. The Queen should return all gifts he has given to the royal family. Brunei should be suspended from the Commonwealth. These draconian laws violate the Commonwealth Charter, which Brunei has agreed to uphold».
«The introduction of death by stoning for homosexuality is an outrageous backward step that will damage the country’s international reputation and menace the lives of LGBTQ+ people».
«This legislation could have adverse economic effects for Brunei. There will be a brain drain as talented LGBTQ+ employees migrate abroad. Foreign investment, aid and trade is likely to diminish, and tourism revenue will fall as western tourists stay away», said Mr Tatchell.
The Peter Tatchell Foundation has set out the financial disadvantages of persecuting LGBTQ+ people in its report: The Economic Cost Of Homophobia.
