A social media influencer was jailed for nearly three years after saying Jesus should get a haircut. The TikTok personality was convicted of infringing Indonesian blasphemy laws for propagating hate speech directed at Christianity, as well as causing disruption to "public order" and disturbing "religious harmony". Ratu Thalisa, a transgender Muslim influencer with a following close to 450,000 on TikTok, received a sentence of two years and ten months from a North Sumatra provincial court. Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, have slammed the verdict as a "shocking attack on freedom of expression." Amnesty International Indonesia's executive director Usman Hamid expressed concern saying, "While Indonesia should prohibit the advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, Ratu Thalisa's speech act does not reach that threshold." Thalisa found herself prosecuted under the contentious Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) law of Indonesia. This law was originally enacted in 2008 and underwent amendments in 2016 to tackle online defamation, but there has been widespread criticism that the Indonesian authorities are using it to curb free speech. In one incident from September 2023, a Muslim woman was sentenced to two years imprisonment for voicing a Muslim phrase before consuming pork. The subsequent year saw another TikTok user detained over charges of blasphemy after they uploaded a quiz that asked children which animals could read the Quran. In the case of Thalisa, prosecutors pushed for a minimum four-year prison term. When she received a shorter sentence, they promptly lodged an appeal against the court's recent judgement, believing the penalty wasn't severe enough. Thalisa was arrested following her response to a comment that suggested she should cut her hair to appear more masculine. Brandishing a picture of Jesus Christ, she retorted: "You should not look like a woman. You should cut your hair so that you will look like his father." Merely days after posting the statement in a TikTok clip, five Christian groups accused Thalisa of blasphemy. The judiciary ruled that, apart from serving time behind bars, Thalisa must pay a penalty totalling approximately $6,200.
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