The Sultan of Brunei, with age, seems to have become more and more religiously fanatic and rigid. He is an autocrat in Brunei, an oil-rich country of roughly 450,000 people on the island of Borneo. Sixty-seven percent of Brunei's citizens are Muslims*, and in 2013 the Sultan announced that the laws of the country would be made to comply with the sharia.
He introduced the changes in the law gradually from 2014 onward, until from the early April of 2019 the most stringent hudud punishments are to be applied:
Traditional Islamic jurisprudence divides crimes into offenses against God and those against man. The former are seen to violate God's hudud or "boundaries", and they are associated with punishments specified in the Quran and in some cases inferred from hadith.[4][5] The offenses incurring hudud punishments are zina (unlawful sexual intercourse such as fornication), unfounded accusations of zina,[6][7] drinking alcohol, highway robbery, and some forms of theft.[8][9] Jurists have differed as to whether apostasy from Islam and rebellion against a lawful Islamic ruler are hudud crimes.[4][10]
Hudud punishments range from public lashing to publicly stoning to death, amputation of hands and crucifixion.[11] Hudud crimes cannot be pardoned by the victim or by the state, and the punishments must be carried out in public.[12]
The linked Wiki article goes on to mention that the most extreme punishments were rarely implemented in the past, but that the recent Islamic revival has
...brought along calls by Islamist movements for full implementation of sharia.[14][16] Reinstatement of hudud punishments has had particular symbolic importance for these groups because of their Quranic origin, and their advocates have often disregarded the stringent traditional restrictions on their application.[14]
Thus, at least on paper**, the death sentence (by stoning, at least in some cases) will be applied to adultery, sodomy and rape.
Western official reactions have been condemning. A quick search of the topic "Brunei" today tells me that most media headlines*** on this most recent expansion of sharia-based laws focus on its impact on gays and Lesbians. And the LGBT individuals in Brunei are, indeed, under a very great threat.
But the law also prescribes a death sentence by stoning for adultery, whether between heterosexuals or not, and this is a greater threat for women than for men:
Campaigners say women are more likely to be convicted of adultery than men because discriminatory laws and customs penalise women more than men for sexual relations outside marriage.
If a man is unhappy with his wife he can – depending on the country – divorce, take other wives or marry another woman temporarily. A woman has few options. She can only divorce in certain circumstances and risks losing custody of her children.
Few Muslim countries agree with the Sultan of Brunei on the use of stoning and amputation as legal punishments.
But family laws governing marriage, divorce and child custody are based on Islamic sharia in several Muslim-majority countries, and in many of those women's testimony in the family courts is worth one half of men's testimony. In general, women are at a disadvantage when laws are based on sharia, just as women would be at a disadvantage if US laws were based on literal interpretations of the Old Testament.
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* Thirteen percent are Buddhists, ten percent Christian and the rest belong to indigenous religions or others not specifically mentioned.
It seems that the hudud sentences will not be applied to non-Muslims. Apostasy, however, also now carries a possible death sentence. This means that Muslims cannot avoid the reach of the hudud laws for adultery and sodomy by converting out of Islam.
** Some experts believe that the law might not be implemented very often:
Whether the law going into effect on April 3 means that people will actually be stoned to death might be another matter.
“It is highly questionable whether the draconian laws will be implemented. Brunei has had a de facto ban on capital punishment and Brunei does care about its international image,” Harding wrote.
“However, even just having these laws on the books will not help its global image, in addition to being morally abysmal,” he added.
*** Examples: