A transgender Muslim TikTok influencer has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison by an Indonesian court after making a joke about Jesus’ appearance, sparking international concern over freedom of expression.
Ratu Thalisa, who has nearly 450,000 followers on the platform, was convicted of blasphemy, spreading hate speech against Christianity and disrupting “public order” and “religious harmony,” as reported by The Mirror US.
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The North Sumatra court sentenced Thalisa to two years and 10 months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of about $6,200.
The comment, made in a TikTok video while responding to a user who told the TikToker to cut their hair, included a reference to Jesus: “You should not look like a woman. You should cut your hair so that you will look like his father.”
/**/Prosecutors had initially sought a four-year prison sentence and have already appealed the court’s decision, saying the punishment was not severe enough. Amnesty International condemned the ruling as a “shocking attack on freedom of expression.”
“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,” said Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia.
Thalisa was prosecuted under Indonesia’s controversial Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) law, which critics say is being misused to silence dissent.
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James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
