Brunei defying UN’s declaration of human rights Steampunk
POP culture convention
Armageddon has changed its rules to ban militarystyled clothing and replica guns.
Will the people who dress up with the steampunk theme follow suite and stop the carrying of a variety of replica weapons when they parade in public? Many people already find some of the weapons offensive and not necessary. Lorraine Adams
Oamaru
[A Steampunk NZ Trust spokeswoman replies:
‘‘Steampunk is an inclusive, fun, tongueincheek genre based on the 19thcentury fashions and industrial invention regarded as Victorian.
‘‘As steampunks, we would naturally frown on any dress that looked anything like recent, reallife military clothing, as our look is based upon retro Victorian style. Our ‘props’, as such, are obviously fantasy based and often completely over the top and easily recognised as not ‘real’.
‘‘There will be a policy regarding dress and the look and feel of props posted on our website in the next few days.’’] I WAS dismayed to read your editorial’s (8.4.19) apology for
Brunei’s current Islamic legal code, a system that makes gay sex illegal and punishes it by torturing a convicted person to death.
Apparently, it’s all a bit complicated but, really, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions because this reflects ‘‘an extreme, but not uncommon, version of [Islam]’’ which is practised in a number of other countries, and besides, even more countries exhibit examples of ‘‘what most Westerners would describe as human rights violations.’’
In addressing this issue, you did not need to go much beyond the first article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which provides that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
What, therefore, was the impediment? Why could a viciously brutal, slow, and agonising killing of a man merely for expressing his inborn sexuality not be unreservedly condemned for the appallingly unjust and outrageously medieval torture that it is?
A clear condemnation of Brunei’s Islamic law penalising gay sex should not be ‘‘complicated’’. It should not be offensive to any humane and civilised member of our community whose values are reflected in the UDHR. Equally, the fact that other countries may do the same thing, or violate human rights, cannot excuse Brunei.
The ‘‘not uncommon,’’ state/ mosquesanctioned torturing of a man to death because of something that is as innate to him as the colour of his hair or the fact that his left hand may be dominant over his right should therefore be reviled without reservation, not let off the hook as your editorial writer seems to wish to do. John Matthews
Saint Clair
[Abridged]