This is terrible. I wish the best for his close friends and family.
The morality police is no joke. Some Ru Girls did a show in Dubai and they were told they could only perform if they weren't in drag. The police even showed up and told them to remove their makeup, which 2/3 did (one just wore sunglasses and took them off at one point to show the crowd his eyes were still painted).
A lot of Eastern and Middle Eastern countries have a similar approach to homosexuality. I don't think the death penalty is standard, but many places do have extensive jail time for it.
While in India, I had to make sure I was closeted to the natives because I could have most definitely been arrested. That meant not adding new co-workers on Facebook, not mentioning that I lived with my boyfriend at the time, not commenting on how Michelle Williams did a show at an Aloft Hotel (as shown in a promo-reel they were playing in the lobby), etc.
This was particularly difficult because it's common place to ask new people about their family there, especially if they're foreign. I was even asked "Do you have a wife?" within 10 minutes of meeting someone, which I deflected with "haha, no! Definitely not ready to be married yet!!! !!!!!!"