Now wait a minute. The Sharia that Brunei is implementing, including “stoning and other punishments,” is no different from the Sharia that is already in place in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere. Is the Obama Administration really going on record saying that Sharia violates international human rights norms? Is “Islamophobia” seeping into its highest levels? Are “Islamophobes” infiltrating the Administration? Expect this stance to be “clarified” and ultimately withdrawn forthwith.
“US says Brunei sharia violates international norms,” AFP, May 16, 2014:
Brunei would violate international standards on human rights if the oil-rich sultanate presses ahead with stoning and other punishments under sharia law, an incoming US official has said.
Nina Hachigian, nominated to be the US ambassador for the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, told her Senate confirmation hearing yesterday that it was “important that a nation’s laws conform with its international obligations on human rights.”
“Some of the physical, corporal punishments associated with law, if implemented as you point out, would be inconsistent with international obligations,” she said in response to a question by Senator Chris Murphy.
The sultan of the tiny petro-state announced last month that he would go ahead with enforcement of Islamic sharia law that will eventually include flogging, severing of limbs and death by stoning.
The news has sparked a furor in the entertainment industry with celebrities including US talk show hosts Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres, and British tycoon Richard Branson, advocating a boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel and other properties in the Dorchester Collection, a hotel chain owned by Brunei’s sovereign wealth fund.
The US State Department earlier said that the US ambassador to Brunei, Daniel Shields, raised his concerns to Brunei.
Hachigian is expected to be confirmed as the second US ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Brunei is a member.
US President Barack Obama’s administration established a US mission to the regional body in 2010 as part of a policy of paying more attention to Southeast Asia.
Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think tank, said that she would encourage ASEAN to make stronger joint statements and repeated US criticism of China’s “provocative” steps in the dispute-ridden South China Sea.
jewdog says
Brunei isn’t the strategic oil producer that Saudi Arabia is, which means that we are less in awe of it and are therefore more willing to be critical.
Recently, Saudi Arabia sentenced half a dozen men to thousands of lashes and 32 years in jail for attending a Valentine’s Day party with women they were not related to. The women are awaiting sentencing.
I think that Brunei should be invaded on the grounds that it supports terrorism. That would set a good example.
Mazo says
Are you accusing the west of being terrorist? Because that is who Brunei is supporting.
Guy says
I think it an incorrect reading of this administration to say they leave Saudi Arabia alone because they are an oil power and Brunei isn’t. Nigeria isn’t an oil power and the administration last year cut support to the Nigerian government because they were being too tough on the Boko Harem.
Egypt has a lot of oil and the administration has attacked every one of their governments that weren’t Muslim Brotherhood friendly enough.
The administration is being critical against Brunei because his base got ahead of him on this and they, in turn, were becoming vocal because of you know – and we all know – what.
The administration doesn’t mean a word of it and Brunei knows it.
mortimer says
When did Obama consider the human rights of non-Muslims to be important?
He started just one minute ago! Until then, he was ONLY interested in protecting the human rights of Muslims.
Obama’s lack of concern for non-Muslims has cost thousands of lives and huge damage to property and national stability!
Ralph says
“Muhammad never killed anyone.”
The Muslim Game:
In order to give others the impression that Muhammad was a man of peace, Muslims sometimes claim that he never killed anyone. By this, they mean that he never slew anyone with his own hand (except in battle… which they may or may not remember to mention).
The Truth:
By this logic, Hitler never killed anyone either.
Obviously, if you order the execution of prisoners or the murder of critics by those who are under your command, then you are at least as guilty as those who carry out your orders. In Muhammad’s case, the number of people that he had murdered were literally too many for historians to fully know.
There were the men taken prisoner at Badr (including one who cried out for his children at the point of execution), a mother of five (stabbed to death for questioning Muhammad’s claim to be a prophet), dozens of Jewish citizens, including poets and merchants who were accused of mocking Islam, numerous adulterers, at least one slave girl, 800 Qurayza men and boys taken captive and beheaded on Muhammad’s order, a Qurayza woman made delirious by the execution of her family, and an unfortunate individual who was tortured to death so that the prophet of Islam could discover his hidden treasure and then “marry” his freshly-widowed wife.
Indirectly, Muhammad is also responsible for the millions upon millions of people who have been slaughtered down through the centuries by those carrying on his legacy of Jihad. Not only did he kill, he is truly one of the bloodiest figures in history.
Guy says
This is a safe criticism for the administration. Brunei doesn’t believe a word of it. And they shouldn’t because this administration doesn’t believe a word of it as well.
Some Hollywood types got ahead of the administration on this and, of course, all this child rape and slavery facts are in the air.