LONDON (Reuters): Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has returned an honorary degree awarded by Britain’s Oxford University after a global backlash led by celebrities including George Clooney and Elton John for proposing the death penalty for gay sex and adultery. Nearly 120,000 people had signed a petition by April calling on Oxford University to rescind the honorary law degree awarded in 1993 to the sultan, the world’s second-longest reigning monarch and prime minister of the oil-rich country. Oxford University said the sultan had decided to hand back the honorary degree on May 6, while it was reviewing its decision to award it. Seeking to temper the backlash, the sultan earlier this month said the death penalty would not be imposed in the implementation of the penal code changes. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking and slavery, property rights, social innovation, resilience and climate change.

Source: The Star May 24, 2019 00:05 UTC