Under a new law due to come into effect next week, homosexual sex and adultery will be punished with death by stoning in Brunei.

A new penal code was announced in May 2014, by Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, resulting in the introduction of a series of restrictive laws over the last five years. These include the amputation of a hand and a foot for the crime of theft.

Homosexuality has been illegal in the small Asian nation since the days of British colonial rule. Under the new law, however, it is punishable by death by stoning rather than a prison sentence.

The law, due to be introduced on Wednesday, has attracted major criticism from human rights groups around the world. In an announcement about the new penal code on the Brunei government's website, the Sultan was quoted as saying that he "does not expect other people to accept and agree with it, but that it would suffice if they just respect the nation in the same way that it also respects them."

Hot Press says:

It is almost impossible to find words to express how utterly abhorrent the decision by the Sultan of Brunei is. To describe the introduction of the death penalty for adultery and homosexual sex as breaches of human rights is to understate things massively. This is barbarism of the most appalling kind. Two key questions follow.

The first is this: will the people who live in Brunei meekly accept these horrific laws and penalties? The reality is that a sufficient groundswell of opposition within the territory could potentially make the laws and the punishments impossible to carry out.

The second, and perhaps more immediate question is this: will the international community respond in a way that puts real pressure on Brunei to change course? Given that these issues have been considered for four years and that the Sultan of Brunei has decided to proceed now, the probability is that diplomacy has little or no chance of working. This points, as Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch has said, to the need for an immediate boycott. The hope is that the EU might take the lead in this. Ireland should play a part in initiating the process.

The casualness with which the spokesman for Brunei's religious affairs Ministry talks about their readiness to chop off people’s hands for ‘stealing’ beggars belief. Whatever needs to be done to prevent this vile activity taking place should be done.

The decision in Brunei should also focus people on the fact that there are other States in the Arab world where barbarous forms of punishment are meted out to individuals. It is no longer acceptable for the international community to take the position of the Three Monkeys when grave injustices are being perpetrated by individual States.

In drawing our attention to this grotesque barbarism, the Sultan of Brunei may have done everyone a favour. The time to respond is now.