The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT civil rights organization in the country, came out today against the government of Brunei’s implementation of new laws that would allow the stoning of LGBT citizens.
“LGBT citizens in many countries around the world remain persistent targets of harassment, arrest, violence, and torture for simply being who they are,” said Ty Cobb, director of Global Engagement at the Human Rights Campaign in a statement. Cobb called Brunei’s decision to enact the death penalty, “horrific and sickening.”
The United Nations Commission had previously condemned the amendments back in April when they said they considered stoning to be “torture” under international law.
Brunei, a region off the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia, will become the eighth nation in the world to allow the death penalty against LGBT people.
In October of 2013, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the absolute ruler of Brunei, amended the nation’s criminal laws to include amputation, flogging and stoning for a number of potential offenses.
These laws will start going into effect today, and beginning in 2015, stoning will be used as a potential punishment for same-sex activity.