Call to strip anti-gay sultan of Queen’s honours
BACKLASH against the Sultan of Brunei grew yesterday amid calls for him to be stripped of two honorary roles awarded by the Queen.
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who has brought in laws making gay sex punishable by stoning to death, is an honorary Air Chief Marshal in the RAF and an Admiral of the Royal Navy. The calls come after a celebrity-inspired campaign demanded a boycott of the ruler’s hotel empire, which includes the Dorchester in London.
More than 100 protesters gathered outside the Park Lane hotel on Saturday bearing rainbow flags. Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society, said: ‘Stripping the Sultan of the honours thay [the services] have bestowed upon him would send out the important message that they do not wish to be in any way associated with this medieval barbarism.’
Buckingham Palace refused to be drawn into the row, with a spokesman
saying: ‘Her Majesty acted on the advice of Government in relation to these honorary appointments.’ The Cabinet Office would not comment on individuals. The Sultan faces being stripped of honorary degrees by the University of Oxford, of Aberdeen and King’s College London this week.