Brunei (The Country) Implements Sharia Law

[Phoenicks]

Brunei adopts Sharia law despite international criticism — RT News

The implementation of Sharia law would mean that residents will face conviction by Islamic courts for their crimes. Most of the laws will apply to non-Muslims, as well. The first phase, which goes into effect on Thursday, will give offenders fines or jail time for acts ranging from pregnancy outside marriage, propagating other religions, or failure to perform Friday prayers. A second phase will go into effect after a year, punishing those who steal or consume alcohol with whipping and amputations. The final stage will take effect in two years, and will use the death penalty - possibly by stoning - for crimes like adultery, sodomy, or insulting the Koran or the Prophet Mohammed.

The implementation of the Sharia law sparks concerns over the rights of minorities as about 20 percent of Brunei residents are non-Muslim, most of whom follow Buddhist, Christian, and indigenous belief systems. Chinese make up the largest ethnic minority at 10 percent of the population, while the majority ethnic Malays make up 65 percent. Brunei is also home to 30,000 mostly Roman Catholic Filipino migrant workers and many Western oil workers, according to Reuters.

 

[Dorothy]

Brunei has long been an autocratic Islamist state, so this is hardly surprising.

 

[TerraTF]

I'm gonna be honest here, never heard of Brunei until I watched Last Week Tonight this morning. Honestly its just another Islamic country instituting Islamic rules. Basically every middle eastern country has rules similar to this.

 

[Lyrebird]

Yeah it was always the more conservative version of Malaysia and Indonesia where I assume the influence came from. This is not surprising at all but it would be interesting to see how the Western World reacts to the news.

 

[Dorothy]

I'm gonna be honest here, never heard of Brunei until I watched Last Week Tonight this morning. Honestly its just another Islamic country instituting Islamic rules. Basically every middle eastern country has rules similar to this.

Brunei is not in the Middle East, it is in Southeast Asia, as its membership in ASEAN would indicate. Your statement would still not hold true even if Brunei was in the Middle East, as most countries within that geographic regions (particularly predominantly non-Muslim or secular states such as Turkey, Armenia, Israel, and Cyprus) do not uphold Sharia as the law of the land.

 

[TerraTF]

I'm gonna be honest here, never heard of Brunei until I watched Last Week Tonight this morning. Honestly its just another Islamic country instituting Islamic rules. Basically every middle eastern country has rules similar to this.

Brunei is not in the Middle East, it is in Southeast Asia, as its membership in ASEAN would indicate.

I know that. The Middle East consists of primarily Islamic countries, therefore my third sentence had nothing to do with my second outside of the Islamic similarity.

 

[Lyrebird]

It's interesting that Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah actually wanted to implement this back in the 1990's as well but did not obviously. Hayati Salleh says that the focus will be evidence, so it will be interesting to see if that is correct.

 

[winstein]

Considering how Brunei is a small country with a high emphasis on Islam (the majority are Muslims), that does not seem surprising. I do wonder if what they are doing is effective, since they are now a more Islam country than ever. I guess it's better that the laws have some rationale behind them, but it makes the country less accessible I feel.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Dorothy]

Boycotts are being held in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel and other Brunei-owned locations in protest of Sharia in Brunei.

 

[Jolene]

Oh well. Who are we to judge? The Sultan probably did it for the good of his people.

 

[Lysandre]

Ugh. Bolkiah blatantly breaks his own rules while pushing to enforce stoning on anyone else who breaks them. It's not surprising to see a country in the area pick up Shariah law, but it's sickening to see it implemented by such a hypocritical tyrant (in addition, he has the world's biggest car collection, which he lets rot out in the elements). If anyone's interested in reading more about him, Jalopnik of all places (because of the whole car collector thing) had a pretty informative and interesting article about him and this situation.

 

[Baby Seals]

I'm gonna be honest here, never heard of Brunei until I watched Last Week Tonight this morning. Honestly its just another Islamic country instituting Islamic rules. Basically every middle eastern country has rules similar to this.

Brunei is not in the Middle East, it is in Southeast Asia, as its membership in ASEAN would indicate. Your statement would still not hold true even if Brunei was in the Middle East, as most countries within that geographic regions (particularly predominantly non-Muslim or secular states such as Turkey, Armenia, Israel, and Cyprus) do not uphold Sharia as the law of the land.

Most Arab countries are not run by Sharia. Tunisia does not have it at all, and most others have primarily secular law systems with Sharia only partially applied. Still, most Middle Eastern countries are pretty modern. A lot has changed since the past - go to Morocco and I doubt you'll see many men (especially not ones my age) wearing fezzes and djellabas unless you're in an isolated village. Actually, some of the Arab countries are ahead of Turkey in some cases. Morocco and Lebanon abolished conscription, while Turkey still forces men against their will to join the dreaded Turkish Army.

The funny thing is, I've been on Arabic websites and judging by the pictures and videos, they don't seem that much different from us. I'm willing to bet most of them are Muslim. Even Lebanon has a Muslim majority.

 

[Lyrebird]

I wouldn't consider Morocco or Tunisia as the Middle East, it is just North Africa. So you would assume that Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria would be similar as the Middle East to themselves.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

Almost all Muslim countries believe that their religion gives them the right to make constant human rights violations. I really hope the people of Brunei manage speak up against the sultan of this nation, who to me sounds like he's becoming an autocratic tyrant on the same level as North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, or a more close comparison being the Taliban and the government of Iran. The part that makes me cringe is the fact they want to stone people, a barbaric way to kill people, especially when 20% of Brunei's population is non-Muslims, including Christians, so it's something to be concerned about.

Interestingly enough, there are actually no references to stoning in the Quran at all, it was something possibly carried over from Arab culture prior to the conception of the religion. Another thing to keep in mind is that many prominent clerics and religious scholars (both Muslim and non-Muslim) oppose the practice of stoning, calling it "Islamically unjustifiable." But it's becoming more common, especially with women. Just look at this chart here for what countries are doing it, all of them Muslim countries:

Spoiler

Concerned yet? I wouldn't want to live in any of these places if this is how they treat their people. Even if I was a Muslim I would see this as a barbaric way of punishing people, regardless of what they've done.