George Clooney demands hotel boycott over Brunei's new anti-gay death penalty law

George Clooney has called on people to boycott nine exclusive hotels that are owned by the Sultan of Brunei in protest of the kingdom’s imminent introduction of a new slew of laws, which include the death penalty by stoning for gay sex.

In a scathing op-ed for Deadline Hollywood published Thursday, the movie actor acknowledged he had “stayed at many of them, a couple of them recently, because I hadn’t done my homework and didn’t know” that they were owned by the Sultan’s Brunei Investment Agency.

He listed the hotels as:

The Dorchester, London

45 Park Lane, London

Coworth Park, England

The Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills

Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles

Le Meurice, Paris

Hotel Plaza Athenee, Paris

Hotel Eden, Rome

Hotel Principe di Savoia, Milan

“They’re nice hotels. The people who work there are kind and helpful and have no part in the ownership of these properties,” Clooney wrote. “But let’s be clear, every single time we stay at or take meetings at or dine at any of these nine hotels we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery.”

Clooney, who participated in a previous campaign against Brunei-owned hotels over the oil-rich monarchy’s treatment of the LGBTQ community, admitted “any boycott would have little effect on changing these laws” but asked if people were “really going to help pay for these human rights violations?”

“Are we really going to help fund the murder of innocent citizens? I’ve learned over years of dealing with murderous regimes that you can’t shame them. But you can shame the banks, the financiers and the institutions that do business with them and choose to look the other way,” he added.

The new laws, which come into effect on April 3, have been condemned worldwide. They also include the punishments of amputation for theft and death for alleged adultery.

Read Clooney’s full op-ed for Deadline Hollywood here.

  • This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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