Travel agents, London’s transport network and finance houses were among companies on Friday that cut ties with businesses owned by Brunei in protest over the Sultanate’s introduction of the death penalty for adultery and gay sex.
The Muslim-majority former British protectorate on April 3 rolled out further Shariah laws that punish sodomy, adultery and rape with death, including by stoning, and theft with amputation.
The move prompted a corporate backlash after actor George Clooney and singer Elton John called for a boycott of hotels owned by Brunei, including the Dorchester in London and the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.
Photo: David Chang, EPA-EFE
STA Travel, a global travel agency owned by privately held Swiss conglomerate Diethelm Keller Group, said it would no longer sell flights on national carrier Royal Brunei Airlines.
“We’ve taken this stance to add our voice to the calls on Brunei to reverse this change in the law and in support of LGBTQI people everywhere,” it said in a statement.
Virgin Australia Airlines ended an agreement that offered discounted tickets on Royal Brunei Airlines for staff.
Royal Brunei did not respond to requests for comment.
Transport For London, which is responsible for London’s transport system, said it was removing ads promoting Brunei as a tourism destination from the city’s public transport network.
Deutsche Bank banned its staff from staying in the nine luxury hotels of the Dorchester Collection, which is owned by Brunei’s state-owned Brunei Investment Agency (BIA).
BIA did not respond to a request for comment.
The Dorchester Collection made a public appeal, saying its values were “far removed from the politics of ownership.”
“We understand people’s anger and frustration, but this is a political and religious issue that we don’t believe should be played out in our hotels and amongst our 3,630 employees,” the Dorchester Collection said in a statement on its Web site.
This did not prevent numerous organizations moving their events elsewhere.
British estate agent Knight Frank, property industry networking group Movers and Shakers, and property investment company Landsec said they would not use Dorchester Collection hotels.
As well as owning the hotel group, the BIA holds about 4 percent of London-listed digital tech venture capital firm Draper Esprit PLC, which it acquired last year.
Draper Esprit CEO Simon Cook said that the company “naturally abhors” the moves in Brunei, but added that the BIA bought shares on the open market and has no “influence either on our company culture or our investment decisions.”
The backlash also spread to universities.
More than 50,000 people signed a petition calling on the University of Oxford to rescind an honorary degree awarded to Brunei Prime Minister Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.
The university’s information office said they shared the international condemnation of Brunei’s new penal code.
“At present, the university has not taken any decision on rescinding the Sultan of Brunei’s 1993 honorary degree of civil law by diploma,” it said in a statement.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS