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Jen Williams, you are one of the hosts of the worldly podcast at Vox.

Why are so many celebrities mad at Brunei right now?

Brunei has enacted a series of really super harsh, repressive laws.

They're based on a really radical interpretation of Islamic law, Sharia.

Basically they say that gay people can be stoned to death for having sex.

It's not just that.

That's the big one.

Also people who commit adultery can be killed by stoning.

And for theft on your first offense, if you're caught stealing, they cut off your hand.

Where did this package of laws come from?

Why is being gay and cheating on your spouse and being a thief, being lumped together

in this really sort of scary way?

So it's part of this broader push that the Sultan of Brunei has been instituting, starting

basically in 2014.

Okay.

More than the country's legal code was based on English common law.

So they were colonized.

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