Celebs Boycotting The Beverly Hills Hotel Owned By Sharia-Loving Sultan Of Brunei

Who knew the Sultan of Brunei owned the snazzy, celebrity-faved Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.  In fact, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah owns the whole Dorchester Hotels collection which both those hotels are a part of.  The Sultan, if you will recall, is the dude who is bringing back the 'death by stoning' part of Shariah law for homosexuality, adultery, extramarital relations, blasphemy, apostasy, murder, robbery and rape. One third of the people in Brunei are non-Muslims, but most of those laws will apply to them, as well.

Some of the other draconian laws the people of Brunei will be subjected to:

From Thursday, Brunei citizens can be fined or jailed by Islamic courts for offenses like not performing Friday prayers, pregnancy out of wedlock, propagating other religions and indecent behavior. More severe punishments -- flogging, amputation of limbs and stoning --for offenses such as theft, adultery and sodomy will be introduced in phases over the next two years.

As a result, Richard Branson of Virgin Group, along with some other celebs, has decided to boycott all Dorchester hotels:

"No @Virgin employee, nor our family, will stay at Dorchester Hotels until the Sultan abides by basic human rights."

Yeah, good luck with that. I can't imagine the Sultan is going to give a damn about some Western infidels boycotting his hotels, but the intentions are good. Maybe if enough people jumped on the bandwagon, hello Emma Thompson and you Boycott Israel types, to hurt the Sultan's bottom line he might relent, but I doubt either will.

Besides Branson, there have been organizations pulling scheduled events out of the hotel after the Human Rights Campaign urged them to do so.

 On Sunday, the Independent School Alliance for Minority Affairs pledged to move its awards event for the Impact Awards from the Beverly Hills Hotel to another location.

“[W]e cannot, in good conscience, support an entity that is controlled by an individual whose beliefs are in direct contradiction to ours," said the group's executive director, Keishia Kemp.

and

On April 30, the Feminist Majority Foundation similarly moved its Jay Leno co-chaired Global Women's Rights Awards in protest. And on April 26, a small group protested at the Beverly Hills Hotel location to raise awareness.

Other boycotting celebs:

Sharon Osbourne, Ellen DeGeneres, Brian Atwood and Peter Som are among those in the industry who have used social media to protest.

The Motion Picture and Television Fund is pulling out for their 2015 event, and Jay Leno and his wife joined a small group of protesters at the hotel.

The Beverly Hills Hotel response:

"We continue to abide by the laws of the countries we operate in and do not tolerate any form of discrimination of any kind." [snip] "The laws that exist in other countries outside of where Dorchester Collection operates do not affect the policies that govern how we run our hotels."

Not good enough. But I predict the boycott will never get off the ground, and after a few months it will all be forgotten. Meanwhile, the A-List celebs will continue to boycott Israel.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter