{"id":120289,"date":"2019-05-24T13:57:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T12:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=120289"},"modified":"2019-05-24T14:09:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T13:09:13","slug":"sultan-of-brunei-returns-oxford-degree-after-backlash-to-anti-gay-laws-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=120289","title":{"rendered":"Sultan of Brunei returns Oxford degree after backlash to anti-gay laws | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-component-name=\"sdc-article-body\">The sultan of Brunei has returned an honorary degree awarded to him by Oxford University following a backlash to his proposal of the death penalty for gay sex and adultery.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 120,000 people have signed a petition calling on the university to rescind the honorary law degree awarded to Hassanal Bolkiah in 1993.<\/p>\n<p>Oxford University said on Thursday that the sultan had decided to hand back the degree earlier this month, while the decision to award it was under review.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman said: &#8220;As part of the review process, the university wrote to notify the sultan on 26 April 2019, asking for his views by 7 June 2019.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Through a letter dated 6 May 2019, the sultan replied with his decision to return the degree.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-article-widget sdc-article-image\">\n<figure class=\"sdc-article-image__figure\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia image\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\">\n<div class=\"sdc-article-image__wrapper\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" src=\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/19\/04\/768x432\/skynews-clooney-george-clooney_4630664.jpg?20190406081704\" srcset=\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/19\/04\/384x216\/skynews-clooney-george-clooney_4630664.jpg?20190406081704 380w, https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/19\/04\/768x432\/skynews-clooney-george-clooney_4630664.jpg?20190406081704 760w, https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/19\/04\/1600x900\/skynews-clooney-george-clooney_4630664.jpg?20190406081704 1024w, https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/19\/04\/2048x1152\/skynews-clooney-george-clooney_4630664.jpg?20190406081704 2048w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1024px) 1024px, 100vw\" alt=\"George Clooney encouraged people to boycott the hotels\"><\/p>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"sdc-article-image__caption\" itemprop=\"caption description\">\n<span class=\"sdc-article-image__visually-hidden\">Image:<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"sdc-article-image__caption-text\">George Clooney encouraged people to boycott hotels owned by the sultan<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Celebrities George Clooney and Sir Elton John were among those who had spoken against Brunei&#8217;s interpretation of Islamic laws, which would have seen sodomy, adultery and rape punishable by death &#8211; including by stoning.<\/p>\n<p>A global outcry included condemnation from the United Nations and several companies banned staff using hotels owned by the sultan. Some travel companies also stopped promoting Brunei to tourists.<\/p>\n<p>The sultan &#8211; the world&#8217;s second-longest reigning monarch &#8211; has since stepped back slightly to say the death penalty will not be imposed.<\/p>\n<p>Oil-rich Brunei is a former British protectorate with a population of about 400,000. It sits between two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo.<\/p>\n<p>It was the first country in the region to adopt the criminal component of sharia at a national level in 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sultan of Brunei has returned an honorary degree awarded to him by Oxford University following a backlash to his proposal of the death penalty for gay sex and adultery. Nearly 120,000 people have signed a petition calling on the university to rescind the honorary law degree awarded to Hassanal Bolkiah in 1993. Oxford University [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2828,2830],"tags":[12145,11360,11407],"class_list":["post-120289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-law","tag-anti-gay-laws","tag-brunei","tag-hassanal-bolkiah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}