Beginning next week, adultery and sexual behaviour between people of the same gender will be punishable by death by stoning in the small Asian nation of Brunei under a new law that comes into effect on April 3.

A strict set of new laws was announced back in 2014 by the country's sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, who doubles as the Prime Minister. The country became the first in its region to adapt Islamic sharia law. But the laws' actual implementation in the small kingdom, just north of Indonesia, has been gradual. A notice of the April 3 start date went up on the Brunei Attorney-General's website on December 29.

A strict set of new laws was announced back in 2014 by the country's sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, who doubles as the Prime Minister. Credit:EPA

Homosexuality has been illegal in Brunei since the country was a British colony, but the new law, in effect, makes it not just illegal, but punishable by death.

At the time of the announcement, the government website quoted the sultan as saying, "His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, in the [command], asserted that in carrying out the Laws of Allah, the nation does not expect other people to accept and agree with it, but that it would suffice if they just respect the nation in the same way that it also respects them".