Hotel Bel-Air

LOS ANGELES — 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.

LONDON — Richard Branson, the founder and CEO of the Virgin group, a £15 billion multinational conglomerate, announced Saturday that he, and his company, would boycott hotels owner by the Sultan of Brunei due to the country’s anti-gay laws.

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei — Brunei on Thursday embraced a form of Islamic Shariah criminal law that includes harsh penalties, a move slammed by international rights group as a step backward for human rights.

A group of high-dollar LGBT donors has cancelled plans to hold its upcoming conference at the famed Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles following news that its owner, the Sultan of Brunei, would institute a revised penal code in his country which calls for death by stoning for homosexual activity.

The United Nations Human Rights office has condemned a revised penal code in Brunei which calls for the death penalty for numerous offenses, including same-sex sexual activity, and introduces stoning to death as the specific method of execution for crimes of a sexual nature.