- Indonesian TikToker jailed for nearly three years over comments about Jesus.
- Court rules remarks disrupted religious harmony, sparking human rights concerns.
- Amnesty International condemns verdict, calls for law reforms and her release.
An Indonesian TikToker, Ratu Thalisa, has been sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison after allegedly “talking” to a picture of Jesus on her phone and jokingly telling him to get a haircut.
Thalisa, a Muslim transgender woman with over 442,000 TikTok followers, made the remark during a livestream while responding to a comment suggesting she cut her own hair to appear more masculine. The incident sparked outrage, leading to multiple police complaints from Christian groups.
On Monday, a court in Medan, Sumatra, found her guilty of spreading hatred under Indonesia’s controversial online hate-speech law and charged her with blasphemy. The court justified the ruling by claiming her comments could disrupt “public order” and “religious harmony.”
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Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, condemned the verdict, calling it a severe violation of freedom of expression. Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director, Usman Hamid, urged authorities to overturn the conviction and release Thalisa immediately.
“The Indonesian authorities should not use the Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) law to punish individuals for social media comments,” Hamid stated. He also called for revisions to the law’s “problematic provisions” that criminalize immorality, defamation, and hate speech.
Originally introduced in 2008 and amended in 2016, the EIT Law was intended to regulate online defamation but has increasingly been used to prosecute individuals over religious remarks. According to Amnesty International, at least 560 people have been charged under the law for expressing their opinions between 2019 and 2024, with 421 convictions.
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Past cases under the law have typically involved religious minorities accused of insulting Islam. Thalisa’s case, in which a Muslim woman faces blasphemy charges related to Christianity, is unusual in Indonesia, where the majority of the population is Muslim.
Prosecutors had initially sought a sentence of over four years and have already appealed Monday’s verdict. Thalisa has been given seven days to challenge the ruling.
