A brand recent penal code mandates loss of life by stoning for intercourse out of doors marriage, anal intercourse and insulting the prophet Muhammad
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THE MOST current person to absorb been accused of theft in Brunei is Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the brother of Sultan Hassan Bolkiah. The govt. stated he embezzled almost $15bn from a sovereign-wealth fund, and pursued him in courts in the future of the sector until he agreed to slay some restitution. He has a recognition as a philanderer, too. A whole lot of females absorb claimed that he kept them in sexual slavery in a crowded harem. (The prince named one of his yachtsKnockersand its two tendersNipple 1andNipple 2.) And then there might be the inquire of of the immense inner most wealth of the sultan himself, who rules the exiguous, oil-soaked sliver of Borneo as an absolute monarch. He owns a gold-plated Rolls-Royce, and lives in a palace with air-conditioned stables for 200 polo ponies, which, despite the incontrovertible truth that perfectly apt, might perhaps furthermore very well be seen as wholesale theft from his 430,000 subjects, who salvage far much less relieve from Brunei’s resources than he does.
The sultan, presumably, did no longer absorb that possess of theft in mind when he pushed for the adoption of a harsh Islamic penal code, which came into force on April 3rd. Amongst diversified brutal punishments, it calls for the amputation of a hand or foot as punishment for thieves, and loss of life by stoning for adultery or intercourse out of doors marriage. Intercourse between two males, anal intercourse and insulting the Prophet are furthermore all punishable by stoning. Whipping is prescribed for all formulation of crimes; young other folks are no longer necessarily exempt.
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In put together, the barbarity it will seemingly be tiny. For one thing, multiple witnesses to the crimes in inquire of are required for these gross sentences to be applied. Brunei’s prosecutors possess no longer seem that zealous. Although the loss of life penalty has prolonged been on the books, there absorb been no executions since 1957.
Yet there might be no guarantee that Brunei’s courts will no longer put in force the recent laws. And even though they hesitate, it stays putting that the sultan, without any obtrusive prodding from his subjects, felt it obligatory to bolster his legitimacy by espousing one of these cruel interpretation of Islam. Probably he wished to distract them from diversified, even much less defensible aspects of his rule.
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