Jakarta: Australia has joined a growing international outcry over the introduction of sharia in Brunei, which includes the death penalty for extra-marital and gay sex in the majority-Muslim country.
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The harsh new penal code began to be implemented by the country's 72-year-old ruler, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, in October 2013 and came into full effect on Wednesday.
It has drawn strong criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United States, Germany, France and Britain and calls for boycotts of luxury hotels such as the Beverly Hills hotel, which is owned by Brunei.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said Australia had "raised our concerns with the Brunei government on the introduction of the full Syariah Penal Code".
"We absolutely oppose the death penalty and are committed to the rights of LGBTI people. We will continue to advocate for human rights in the region and beyond," she said on Twitter.
The foreign affairs department has also updated its travel warning for Brunei to highlight the fact that executions and other physical punishments are applicable under the new laws.
The new penal code imposes death by stoning for anal sex, heterosexual extra-marital sex and abortion. Lesbian sex can be punished by up to 100 lashes.
For the death penalty to be imposed, either four people have to witness the now-illegal act or a person has to confess. Children who have reached puberty can, under the laws, be tried as adults and receive the same punishments.
People who are convicted of theft face having their limbs amputated. There are also penalties for sexual relations between a Muslim and a non-Muslim, and for selling food, drink or cigarettes during Ramadan.
Both Muslims and non-Muslims can also get into legal trouble for printing, importing or sharing publications deemed to be against the Islamic faith.
The new laws in Brunei have come into effect at a time when the rights of LGBTI people in other majority-Muslim nations in south-east Asia, including Indonesia and Malaysia, are increasingly under threat and as Islam plays a more assertive role in those nations' politics.
Human Rights Watch's deputy director in Asia, Phil Robertson, said the laws were a "little house of horrors".
"Brunei deserves to be an international human rights pariah for these laws," he said.
"What happens, for example, if someone is tortured and then 'confesses' to having gay sex?"
Mr Robertson welcomed Senator Payne's comments as evidence she was "right on top of it".
"That’s welcome. I think Australia’s response has to be comprehensive and multi-faceted. It has to be based on the whole idea of human rights and not criminalising love, but then it also has to be underpinned by Australia’s abhorrence of the death penalty," he said.
"Australia has to re-double its efforts through out the south-east Asia region."
Brunei is a tiny nation of just over 400,000 people with tremendous oil wealth. It has been ruled by the current Sultan, who is one of the richest people on the planet, since 1967.
