Hollywood is responding to harsh new laws in the tiny Southeast Asia nation of Brunei by boycotting the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The Motion Picture & Television Fund joined a growing list of organizations and individuals Monday refusing to do business with hotels owned by the sultan or government of Brunei. They’re protesting the country’s new Islamic Shariah criminal law that calls for punishing adultery, abortions and same-sex relationships with flogging and stoning.
The Motion Picture & Television Fund says it won’t hold its annual Night Before the Oscar party at the hotel as it has for many years.
“We cannot condone or tolerate these harsh and repressive laws and as a result support a business owned by the sultan of Brunei or a Brunei sovereign fund associated with the government of Brunei,” the fund’s directors said in a statement.
Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who owns the Beverly Hills Hotel, has praised his country’s new laws as a “great achievement.”
The most severe punishments — flogging, amputation and stoning — are to be introduced over the next two years.
Branson tweeted over the weekend that no member of his staff would stay at any Dorchester Collection hotel “until the Sultan abides by basic human rights.”
Members of the Feminist Majority Foundation joined representatives from other civil rights groups Monday afternoon to picket the hotel. Jay Leno was among the protesters.
Dorchester Collection’s chief executive said the hotel boycott is misdirected.
“American companies across the board are funded by foreign investment, including sovereign wealth funds,” Christopher Cowdray said in a statement.
The Beverly Hills City Council is set to consider a resolution Tuesday calling on Brunei to divest its ownership is the historic hotel.