{"id":6946,"date":"2015-12-22T23:11:15","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T23:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=6946"},"modified":"2015-12-22T23:13:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T23:13:18","slug":"brunei-to-jail-anyone-for-5-years-who-celebrates-christmas-in-that-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=6946","title":{"rendered":"Brunei to Jail Anyone for 5-years Who Celebrates Christmas In that Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier in April, the rest of the world condemned monarch-ruled Brunei after announcing the introduction of the Sharia penal code that would include penalties such as the severing of limbs and death by stoning.<\/p>\n

The tiny but prosperous state on the island of Borneo that is ruled by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, has now made international headlines once again after the state announced a ban on Christmas.<\/p>\n

The ban was declared on the internationally celebrated Christian holiday because the religious affairs ministry said that publicly marking non-Islamic rituals or festivities could be seen as propagations of religions other than Islam.<\/p>\n

Roughly 20 per cent of Brunei\u2019s residents comprise of non-Muslims, including sizeable Buddhist and Christian communities.<\/p>\n

\u2018Believers of other religions that live under the rule of an Islamic country \u2013 according to Islam \u2013 may practice their religion or celebrate their religious festivities among their community, with the condition that the celebrations are not disclosed or displayed publicly to Muslims,\u2018<\/p>\n

\u2018Muslims should be careful not to follow celebrations such as these that are not in any way related to Islam\u2026 and could unknowingly damage the faith of Muslims.\u2018 Said the government of Brunei in a statement.<\/p>\n

The tough restriction was put in place after children and adults were seen wearing clothes \u2018that resemble Santa Claus\u2019 \u2013 thereby promoting a religion other than Islam<\/p>\n

The statement also noted that businesses that publicly displayed Christmas decorations would be asked to take them down\u2013 to which the businesses had given their \u2018full cooperation\u2019 in the matter.<\/p>\n

The penalty for celebrating Christmas in Brunei is punishable with a jail term of up to 5-years.<\/p>\n

Brunei\u2019s latest decision to ban Christmas officially will no doubt, attract more international criticism- following the harsh Sharia penal code that was announced to be implemented in the state in April by Brunei\u2019s 68-year-old Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.<\/p>\n

These are really tough times for Christians oh. May God help us.<\/p>\n

As a Christian, what would you do if you found yourself resident in such an area? pls lets have your opinion.\"Christmass\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier in April, the rest of the world condemned monarch-ruled Brunei after announcing the introduction of the Sharia penal code that would include penalties such as the severing of limbs and death by stoning. The tiny but prosperous state on the island of Borneo that is ruled by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, has now made international […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[1085],"class_list":["post-6946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-international-news","tag-christmas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Christmass.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1O2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6946"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6946\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}