LONDON — Dozens of people protested in London on Saturday against new Islamic laws in Brunei that allow authorities to punish gay sex and adultery by stoning offenders to death.
The University of Oxford, in response to the international outcry over the Southeast Asian nation’s draconian measures, said it will reconsider an honorary degree it awarded the sultan of Brunei.
The university said in a statement that it shared the “international revulsion” the laws induced and that it would reconsider a 1993 decision to confer the honorary degree of civil law by diploma to Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.
But Oxford stressed that no one had the right “summarily to rescind” the degree.
In central London, about 100 protesters raised the rainbow flag of the LGBTrights movement outside the Dorchester Hotel, which Brunei’s sultan owns. Celebrities including George Clooney, Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres have supported a global boycott of the Dorchester and eight other luxury hotels in the U.S. and Europe that have ties to Hassanal.
Demonstrators chanted “shame on you,” and some broke through barriers to stand at the entrance of the hotel.
“I am married to a woman, so it touches home,” said protester Ashleigh Gonsalves, who carried a rainbow umbrella. “It’s very important. It’s about lives. It doesn’t get more important than that.”
Labor Party lawmaker Emily Thornberry said Brunei should be “chucked out” of the Commonwealth group of nations if the laws are not revoked.