BANGKOK: It is very likely that leading tour operators, tourism influencers and media will give the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Brunei a wide berth next January as a gesture of disgust.
The annual travel event that attracts 1,500 delegates from the 10-nation ASEAN bloc and tour operators worldwide will be hosted in January 2020 by Brunei.
As the smallest nation in the group, Brunei is keen to use the prestigious ATF event as a platform to showcase its determination to diversify from an economy almost totally reliant on oil and gas to one that taps the benefits of heritage and eco-tourism.
By 2021, tourism officials say visitor arrivals could double to reach 500,000 if its promotions work.
That bold objective could now face a serious pushback from international tour operators and other responsible travel industry players including the media.
In a statement posted on its website on Wednesday, Amnesty International called on Brunei to halt plans to introduce what it calls “vicious” new punishments such as death by stoning for same-sex acts and amputation for robbery, set to come into effect next week.
Amnesty International’s Brunei researcher, Rachel Chhoa-Howard said: “Brunei must immediately halt its plans to implement these vicious punishments and revise its Penal Code in compliance with its human rights obligations.
“The international community must urgently condemn Brunei’s move to put these cruel penalties into practice.
“Some of the potential ‘offences’ should not even be deemed crimes at all, including consensual sex between adults of the same gender.”
Pending provisions in Brunei’s Penal Code would allow stoning and amputation as punishments – including for children.
These punishments are included in newly-implemented sections of the Brunei Darussalam Syariah Penal Code, due to come into force 3 April, according to a discreet notice which appeared on the Attorney General’s website.
Amnesty expressed grave concerns over changes to the Penal Code when they were proposed in 2014.
Under international human rights law, corporal punishment in all its forms, such as stoning, amputation or whipping, constitutes torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, which is prohibited in all circumstances.
Brunei has signed, but not yet ratified, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
While Brunei retains the death penalty in law, it is abolitionist in practice. One new death sentence was imposed in 2017, for a drug-related offence.
Tourism today is an insignificant player in Brunei generating no more than 250,000 visits a year, but it is likely to decline considerably once visitors recognise the risks inherent in the country’s penal code.
According to a report filed by the Associated Press on Wednesday, “There has been no vocal opposition to the law in Brunei, where Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah rules as head of state with full executive authority.”
AP quoted the Sultan, who has reigned since 1967, previously
Under secular laws, Brunei already prescribes caning as a penalty for crimes including immigration offences, for which convicts can be flogged with a rattan cane, AP stated.
(Source: Amnesty, wire services with additional reporting.)
