to be astonished at what's happening in Brunei?

[Sallyingforth]

Another country determined to drag women (and men) back to the dark ages.
"The initial phase of the new penal code introduces fines or prison terms for offences including indecent behaviour, failure to attend Friday prayers and pregnancies out-of-wedlock.

The second phase due to start later this year will cover crimes such as theft and robbery and will involve more stringent penalties such as amputations and flogging.

The most severe punishments, such as death by stoning for offences including sodomy and adultery, will be introduced late next year"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27303085

Thank you for sharing that. I had no idea.

I attend work things at some of the hotels in that group so will be rethinking my attendance.

I lived in Brunei when I was younger, it was a beautiful and lovely place, how sad to see it changing like this.

Heinous inhumanity. Thank you for sharing. Let's support a worldwide protest against such atrocities.

So is Britain withdrawing our troops from there?
Can't find anything on Google to say we are.

I worked in Brunei for a while and it has got to be the weirdest place i have encountered. The people there seem to be unquestioning sheep. The place is so sanitised and protected from the 'real world' it's like the people are children, kept in a permanent infantilised state. It reminded me of a dystopian novel like brave new world.

The changes are terrible tho, i really hope the people challenge it in some way. But i suspect they will just accept everything, as that appears to be their culture.

When i watch Toy Story, the 'claw' scene always makes me think of Brunei.

I can't imagine anyone wanting to visit a country like that and it would be an unacceptable risk anyway. I mean even though I wouldn't be planning to steal anything or have a baby out of wedlock who knows what indecent behaviour covers? showing your face perhaps? and what's the penalty for being an atheist?.

Of course I'm a man so I'd probably be okay. Generally it's women who get the raw deal in religion controlled areas.

I only stumbled across this with a link on the BBC World News site "Stars boycott Beverly Hills Hotel" and I clicked in an idle moment.

Something as serious as this should be front page news by itself, not because of a few 'stars' taking an interest. But of course Brunei is another oil-rich country that no outside government wants to offend, so it's not high on anyone's agenda.

It should be front page news because the UK has had such strong links with Brunei for such a long time.
I believe the Sultan pays us to keep a garrison there and we still use Brunei for jungle training.

Unless you were gay, backonlybriefly, or committed whatever they decie counts as "adultery", in which case you'd be up for the death penalty too.

Fucking disgraceful what is going on with the world?

For countries who have always had these laws - terrible obviously, but for countries to actually move towards this - WTF is going on?

I recruited over there (for health care professional young women to come and work in Europe for a 3yr stint) and naively thought once they were out in a culture less paternalistic, they would find it hard to return. However, they couldn't wait to go back. Everyone i spoke to adored the Sultan, loved and were grateful and humble that he was kind and 'looked after them' (they also had strong words against his brother). They felt he was wonderful and couldn't understand why anyone would voice dissent to the regime.

It is not surprising that the people there would actively be moving towards even stricter laws. Especially the women seemed to prefer this. They appeared to have a fear of freedom.

It is a very wealthy country with quite a small population in comparison. Some of the wealth is used to generate work for the people. The red tape and 'civil service' is huge there, justifying pointless jobs. No one wants to challenge it, because as long as they do as they are told, they will be looked after.

Spam reported

Wow that's really shocking. I never heard of this before, it doesn't seem to be widely reported.