I suspect most readers of this site will have been absolutely horrified by the introduction of brutal new laws today in the tiny nation of Brunei which make gay sex and adultery punishable by stoning to death and theft punishable by amputation.
Situated on the island of Borneo, Brunei is a former British protectorate, and became a member of the Commonwealth in 1984 when it gained independence. Last year there was a UK ministerial visit to Brunei in August and a trade envoy visited in November.
Today in the Commons, Jo Swinson asked the Foreign Office Minister to intervene to stop this:
From today, Brunei introduces a new punishment for gay sex: stoning to death.
This is barbaric, inhumane and completely contrary to Commonwealth values.
If our soft power through the Commonwealth means anything, we should be able to tackle such appalling human rights abuses. pic.twitter.com/ou8btNxmIa
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) April 3, 2019
Afterwards she said:
Stoning is barbaric and inhumane. Let’s be clear: this means people having rocks thrown at their head again and again to draw out the process of death by blunt trauma.
LGBT+ rights are human rights, and the defence of them should be central to the UK’s foreign and trade policy. The Conservative Government should not be trying to cosy up to the Brunei regime while its LGBT+ citizens are fearing for their lives.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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6 Comments
@Martin Land
Since Jo is our spokesperson on foreign and commonwealth affairs why shouldn’t she say something about it? Frankly I’d be concerned if she didn’t say somethign to condemn it.
Well said Jo. We must keep up the pressure on this regime. LGBT rights are human rights.
@Nonconformistradical “@Martin Land”
???
Did Martin Land mention that thing which can’t be mentioned on this site?
Last night, our D66 party leader Rob Jetten MP, went on national public TV (in a popular early evening talkshow) and roundly and explicitly condemned the same laws.
D66 is with that the most outspoken of all Dutch parties on this issue.
And D66 is record holder in another aspect: Jetten is our second openly gay party leader (the first was Boris Dittrich QC, who was party leader in 2003-’06, and is a newly elected D66 senator. He’s the man who launched the Dutch Gay Marriage Act).
Good to see opposition to this vile regime. And on a similar note, good to see the party stand against the evil House of Saud too. Another country that the Tories defer to.
@ Caron,
Why that headline?
We know that Brunei has been intent on these human rights abuses since 2014.
Of course it is shocking, and indeed consensual sex between two consenting adults is a human rights abuse, but so is the flogging of women who have abortions, the punishment of those who expose children to any other religion other than Islam and religious minorities.
Brunei is having economic difficulties which is probably the reason for all these hard line, barbaric practices.
My question would be, why have we got 2,000 British troops in Brunei supporting the monarchy?