FILE PHOTO: The logo of Deutsche Bank is seen in front of one of the bank's office buildings in Frankfurt, Germany, October 27, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank has banned its staff from staying in hotels of the Brunei-owned Dorchester Collection, following the Sultanate’s decision to implement Islamic laws that would allow death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality. “The new laws introduced by Brunei breach the most basic human rights, and we believe it is our duty as a firm to take action against them,” Deutsche Bank’s Chief Risk Officer Stuart Lewis said in a statement. Brunei’s state-owned investment agency BIA owns the Dorchester Collection hotel group, which features luxury venues such as The Dorchester, The Beverly Hills Hotel, Principe di Savoia and Hotel Bel-Air. Deutsche Bank was one of the co-founders of the Partnership for Global Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Inter and Queer (LGBTIQ) Equality consortium. On Wednesday, the United Nations said that Brunei was violating human rights by implementing Sharia laws, which punish sodomy, adultery and rape with the death penalty - including by stoning, and theft with amputation.<doc-sep>French chef Alain Ducasse poses in the dining room at the Le Meurice Restaurant in Paris September 4, 2013. REUTERS/Charles Platiau LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Deutsche Bank’s latest strategy for boosting its appeal may be its most effective yet: the German lender headed by Christian Sewing has banned staff from Dorchester Collection hotels after its owner, the government of Brunei, implemented homophobic laws. Shareholders will welcome the fact that employees of a bank whose costs ate up 93 percent of revenue last year will no longer frequent a chain which charges nearly 400 pounds a night for a standard room in London. However, the decision raises the moral bar. Brunei’s state-owned investment agency owns the Dorchester Collection hotel group, which includes luxury venues such as The Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Oscar-winning actor George Clooney called for a boycott after the government implemented Islamic laws which would impose the death penalty for homosexuality or adultery. Celebrities including singer Elton John have joined in. Shunning the sultanate is relatively painless for Deutsche, which has limited business in Brunei. Yet like many of its global peers the bank continues to operate in Saudi Arabia, which also has stringent anti-homosexuality laws. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon recently met government-linked clients in the desert kingdom. Banks and other big multinationals long argued that they had to accept the laws of countries where they do business. But pressure from customers and shareholders is forcing them to set out moral positions. Employers’ efforts to attract and retain a diverse workforce in the West is also increasingly hard to square with maintaining links with repressive regimes. Big companies generally muster two defences. The first is that if the government is moving in the right direction, a boycott would be counter-productive. This is how companies justified their presence in Saudi Arabia – which recently allowed women to drive – at least until the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last year. The second defence is that companies have an obligation to their shareholders to weigh the costs of boycotting certain countries against the reputational damage of working with them. Increased investor demand for companies to meet a range of social and environmental criteria means banks especially will face more awkward questions about business in illiberal countries. So while Deutsche’s Brunei boycott may be relatively cost-free, it will face bigger financial tests in the future.<doc-sep>Ellen DeGeneres, Elton John and Billie Jean King are among celebrities to follow George Clooney’s lead in calling for a boycott of hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei, who on Wednesday introduced strict new laws in his country including sentences of stoning to death for adultery and homosexual sex. Starting today, offences such as rape, robbery and defamation of the Prophet Muhammad will carry the death penalty, while theft will be punishable by amputation. Lesbian sex will carry a penalty of 40 strokes of the cane and/or a maximum of 10 years in jail, while those who “persuade, tell or encourage” Muslim children under the age of 18 “to accept the teachings of religions other than Islam” are liable for a fine or jail. Homosexuality was already illegal in the country. The brutal new laws have sparked outrage among human rights organizations and public figures. I’m aware of at least one Hollywood firm that is considering re-routing an upcoming event at one of the Los Angeles-based hotels; the Sultan owns the Hotel Bel-Air and the iconic The Beverly Hills Hotel. Ellen yesterday took to Twitter to support a boycott on the Brunei-backed hotels, a plea initially made by Clooney on Deadline. Tomorrow, the country of #Brunei will start stoning gay people to death. We need to do something now. Please boycott these hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei. Raise your voices now. Spread the word. Rise up. pic.twitter.com/24KJsemPGH — Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) April 2, 2019 Elton John also voiced his support for a ban on the Dorchester Collection hotel chain, which includes The Dorchester in London. I commend my friend, #GeorgeClooney, for taking a stand against the anti-gay discrimination and bigotry taking place in the nation of #Brunei – a place where gay people are brutalized, or worse – by boycotting the Sultan’s hotels.https://t.co/8ymurW7hqm — Elton John (@eltonofficial) March 30, 2019 Tennis star and LGBT activist Billie Jean King added her voice to the campaign today… This atrocity begins today in #Brunei. Please join me and spread the word about the boycott of hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei. https://t.co/GcJnlbq5nb — Billie Jean King (@BillieJeanKing) April 3, 2019 … as did Homeland star Nimrat Kaur… To think this a possibility makes my soul tremble. Whatever needs/can be done, must/has to be done NOW. Aghast at the mere thought…#ShameOnBrunei #NotInTheNameOfReligion https://t.co/BpLpSS5rYX — Nimrat Kaur (@NimratOfficial) April 3, 2019 … and Beauty and the Beast and The Alienist star Luke Evans. I’m with George! George Clooney calls for hotel boycott over Brunei LGBT laws https://t.co/fH01uDiYyM — Luke Evans (@TheRealLukevans) April 3, 2019 Today, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan confirmed that the London Underground would be removing some Brunei tourist advertisements from its network. The Brunei Investment Agency, which owns the Dorchester Collection of hotels, today said it does “not tolerate any form of discrimination. Dorchester Collection’s code emphasises equality, respect and integrity in all areas of our operation, and strongly values people and cultural diversity amongst our guests and employees. Inclusion and diversity remain core beliefs.”<doc-sep>See the recovery efforts in Gaza as ceasefire appears to hold 'Is everything I'm trying to do pointless? ': Syrians helpless in face of 'sham' election Report: US companies may have benefited from forced labor of Uyghurs Residents stand near stalls along a road amidst debris while strong winds batter Balasore district in Odisha state on May 26, 2021 as Cyclone Yaas barrels towards India's eastern coast in the Bay of Bengal. (Photo by Dibyangshu SARKAR / AFP) (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images) France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame speak as they walk in the grounds of The Presidential Palace in Kigali on May 27, 2021, after their press conference and prior to their official luncheon. - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Rwanda on May 27, 2021, for a highly symbolic visit aimed at moving on from three decades of diplomatic tensions over France's role in the 1994 genocide in the country. Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the East African nation, which has long accused France of complicity in the killing of some 800,000 mostly Tutsi Rwandans. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images) TORONTO, ON - SEPTEMBER 09: George Clooney attends the premiere of "Suburbicon" during the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival at Princess of Wales on September 9, 2017 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures) (CNN) — Film star George Clooney has called for a boycott of nine hotels because of their links to Brunei, where homosexual acts will from next week be punishable by death. In an opinion piece written for Deadline, Clooney decried Brunei’s announcement that from April 3 the country will stone or whip to death citizens caught committing adultery or having gay sex. “Let that sink in. In the onslaught of news where we see the world backsliding into authoritarianism this stands alone,” Clooney said. He called for the public to join him in immediately boycotting nine hotels – three in the UK, two in the US, two in France and two in Italy. They include the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Bel-Air in Los Angeles, the Dorchester in London and Le Meurice in Paris. Clooney said the Brunei Investment Agency owns the hotels, which he described as some of the “most exclusive” in the world. He even admitted he had stayed in some, until he found out who owned them. “Every single time we stay at, or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery,” he said. “Are we really going to help pay for these human rights violations? Are we really going to help fund the murder of innocent citizens?” Many of the hotels have refrained from commenting directly on Clooney’s call for a boycott. “Dorchester Collection’s Code emphasises equality, respect and integrity in all areas of our operation, and strongly values people and cultural diversity amongst our guests and employees. Inclusion and diversity remain core beliefs as we do not tolerate any form of discrimination,” the company said in a statement. Le Meurice in Paris, did not have a comment but said they wanted to “stress that we do value LGBTQ rights,” according to the hotel’s press manager, Alexandra Chlopek. But other international figures have aligned against the law. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called the law “cruel and inhumane.” “I call on the Sultanate of Brunei to withdraw the death penalty by stoning f homosexual acts between consenting adults,” he said on Twitter. “The same goes for other countries which have the same cruel & inhuman laws. No one should be criminalized based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.” Australian Sen. Penny Wong also tweeted that “Labor is deeply concerned by the Brunei government’s plans to implement new laws that would see adultery and homosexual acts between consenting adults punishable by death.” Former US Vice President Joe Biden said stoning “people to death for homosexuality or adultery is appalling and immoral.” “Every single person on earth is entitled to be treated with dignity and to live without fear. There is no excuse – not culture, not tradition – for this kind of hate and inhumanity.” A penal code based on Sharia law Brunei is a small oil-rich kingdom of just over 450,000 people on the island of Borneo, close to the more moderate Islamic nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. In May 2014, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah announced he would be imposing a new penal code based on Sharia law, an Islamic legal system which outlines strict corporal punishments. At the time, the government’s website quoted the Sultan as saying that his government “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.” A new statement from the Office of Brunei’s Prime Minister says the country has “always been practicing a dual legal system, one that is based on the Syariah (Shariah) Law and the other on Common Law.” The two systems will run in parallel starting April 3, the statement said, and will “maintain peace and order and preserve religion, life, family and individuals regardless of gender, nationality, race and faith.” “The Syariah Law, apart from criminalizing and deterring acts that are against the teachings of Islam, it also aims to educate, respect and protect the legitimate rights of all individuals, society or nationality of any faiths and race.” The roll out of the new laws was at the Sultan’s discretion and on December 29 it was quietly announced that capital punishment for homosexual sex would be imposed in April. Theft will be punished by amputation under the new laws. “Brunei must immediately halt its plans to implement these vicious punishments, and revise its Penal Code in compliance with its human rights obligations.<doc-sep>
George Clooney has a long relationship with Deadline, often on matters beyond film and television. In a guest column, he calls for the immediate boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Hotel Bel-Air and six others to protest the imminent legalization of laws that make it open season on the LGBTQ community in Brunei. The date April 3rd has held a unique place in our history over the years. Theologians and astronomers will tell you that Christ was crucified on that date. On April 3rd Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan, arguably the greatest postwar intervention in the history of man. The first portable cellphone call was made on April 3rd. Marlon Brando was born on that day. But this April 3rd will hold its own place in history. On this particular April 3rd the nation of Brunei will begin stoning and whipping to death any of its citizens that are proved to be gay. Let that sink in. In the onslaught of news where we see the world backsliding into authoritarianism this stands alone. Related Story George Clooney, Jeffrey Katzenberg & More Celebrate MPTF's 100th Anniversary; Announce $300 Million Fundraising Drive To Support Generations Of Industry Workers To Come Brunei isn’t a significant country. Its population is less than 500,000 people, pretty small in relation to most of its neighbors, The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia. But Brunei has oil. This year it was ranked as the 5th richest nation by Forbes. Good for them. Of course they haven’t had an election since 1962 and have adopted the most extreme version of Sharia law so, not so good for them. At the head of it all is the Sultan of Brunei who is one of the richest men in the world. The Big Kahuna. He owns the Brunei Investment Agency and they in turn own some pretty spectacular hotels. A couple of years ago two of those hotels in Los Angeles, The Bel-Air and The Beverly Hills Hotel were boycotted by many of us for Brunei’s treatment of the gay community. It was effective to a point. We cancelled a big fundraiser for the Motion Picture Retirement Home that we’d hosted at the Beverly Hills Hotel for years. Lots of individuals and companies did the same. But like all good intentions when the white heat of outrage moves on to the hundred other reasons to be outraged, the focus dies down and slowly these hotels get back to the business of business. And the Brunei Investment Agency counts on that. They own nine of the most exclusive hotels in the world. Full disclosure: I’ve stayed at many of them, a couple of them recently, because I hadn’t done my homework and didn’t know who owned them. They’re nice hotels. The people who work there are kind and helpful and have no part in the ownership of these properties. But let’s be clear, every single time we stay at or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery. Brunei is a Monarchy and certainly any boycott would have little effect on changing these laws. But are we really going to help pay for these human rights violations? Are we really going to help fund the murder of innocent citizens? I’ve learned over years of dealing with murderous regimes that you can’t shame them. But you can shame the banks, the financiers and the institutions that do business with them and choose to look the other way. Below I’ve listed the nine hotels. It’s up to each of us what we want to do. George Clooney The Dorchester, London 45 Park Lane, London Coworth Park, UK The Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles Le Meurice, Paris Hotel Plaza Athenee, Paris Hotel Eden, Rome Hotel Principe di Savoia, Milan