The University of Oxford says it will reconsider an honorary degree it awarded the Sultan of Brunei following the outcry over new Islamic laws that punish gay sex and adultery by stoning offenders to death.
The university said on April 6 it shared the “international revulsion” the laws induced and that it would reconsider a 1993 decision to confer the honorary degree of civil law by diploma to Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. Still, Oxford stressed that no one had the right “summarily to rescind” the degree.
Dozens of protesters raised the rainbow flag on April 6 outside London’s Dorchester Hotel, which Brunei’s sultan owns. Celebrities including George Clooney, Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres have supported a global boycott of nine hotels tied to Hassanal.