An Indonesian influencer has been jailed for almost three years after telling 'Jesus' to get a haircut.
Ratu Thalisa, a transgender woman with more than 440,000 followers on TikTok, had reportedly been livestreaming when a viewer told her to cut her hair short to avoid looking like a woman.
Thalisa, a Muslim woman, held up a picture of Jesus Christ on her phone and jibed, 'You should not look like a woman. You should cut your hair so that you will look like his father,' referring to the father of the abusive viewer.
Five Christian groups filed a complaint to the police for blasphemy over the October 2 comments, prompting her arrest four days later.
On Monday, the district court in Medan, North Sumatra province, found her guilty of spreading hatredunder a widely-criticised online hate-speech law, and sentenced her to two years and 10 months in prison.
She was also ordered to pay a fine of 100,000,000 IDR (£4,716).
The court said that her comments could disrupt 'public order' and 'religious harmony' in the majority Muslim country. She was initially charged with spreading 'hate speech' and committing blasphemy.
Prosecutors immediately appealed Monday's verdict, which was more lenient than their demand for a sentence of more than four years. Ratu has seven days to decide whether to appeal.
Thalisaheld up a picture of Jesus Christ on her phone and responded to the comment
Ratu, who sold beauty products online, was reportedly responding to a comment that told her to cut her hair to avoid appearing like a woman
File image.Ratu Thalisa held upa picture of Jesus Christ on her phone and made comment on his hair after a critic told her to cut her hair short to avoid looking like a woman
Yesterday's sentencing decision was met with backlash from rights groups, who called it a 'shocking attack' on her freedom of expression and pointed to what they deemed wider abuses of a 'vague' electronic information law.
Usman Hamid, Indonesia's Executive Director at Amnesty International, urged the authorities to ensure Thalisa's 'immediate and unconditional release' and repeal or revise 'problematic provisions' in the ElectronicInformation and Transactions (EIT) law.
'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,' Hamid said.
'This sentence highlights the increasingly arbitrary and repressive application of Indonesia's EIT law to violate freedom of expression.'
Hamid reiterated that authorities should not use the country's EITlaw to punish people for comments made on social media.
Critics have long warned that abuse of the law could lead to state overreach.
Amnesty noted in 2022 that 'several provisions' within the law criminalising defamation and the 'dissemination of information that incites hatred' online have been 'excessively and arbitrarily used as a basis for making police reports and arresting members of civil society for simply exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly'.
The judge handed the woman - a Muslim according to court documents - a sentence of two years and 10 months,Dapot Dariarma of the local prosecutor's office said
Thalisawas initially charged with spreading 'hate speech' and committing blasphemy
Between January 2019 and May 2022, the organisation recorded 'at least' 332 individuals charged with alleged violations of the Article 27(1) and (3) and Article 28(2) of the EIT law.
In 2023, Muslim influencer Lina Lutfiawati was jailed for two years after she made a video on TikTok which showed her eating pork.
And in 2018, a Chinese-Indonesian woman was jailed for 18 months after she complained about the volume of the speakers broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer in Tanjung Balai.
Civil liberties have been backsliding in Indonesia for several years. Amnesty warned that the government has used 'vaguely drafted articles' since the pandemic to arrest dozens of people for allegedly spreading 'misinformation' regarding Covid-19.
Protestors - 'particularly labour and student activists' - have likewise been 'arbitrarily detained and arrested' over their criticism of Covid-related policies, the report notes.
Indonesia last year enacted a degree to impose fines against tech and social media companies that fail to take down content opposed by the state.
The country continues to practice discriminatory policies despite its strict laws ostensibly in place to tackle the incitement of hatred.
On February 27, two university students were publicly flogged in the city of Banda Aceh for having consensual same-sex relations.
While homosexuality is frowned upon in Muslim-majority Indonesia and members of the LGBTQ community face legal challenges, Aceh is the only province that has criminalised it under Islamic Sharia law and imposes public caning.
A member of the Sharia police flogs a man found guilty of sexual relations with another man under the strict Islamic sharia law, in Banda Aceh on February 27, 2025
A member of the Sharia police ahead of the flogging on February 27, 2025
A man (L), found guilty of sexual relations with another man under the strict Islamic sharia law, is handcuffed as he is being escorted to be publicly flogged in Banda Aceh on February 27
One of the men was flogged 77 times, the other 82.
The men were seized on November 7 when locals forcefully entered their room and took them to police for Sharia investigation, per local media.
Under international human rights law, all forms of corporal punishment are prohibited as they constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and often torture, Amnesty International noted in its condemnation of the flogging.
The Southeast Asian nation of some 280 million has significant numbers of religious minorities - including Christians, Hindus and Buddhists - who have been targeted by radical Islamist groups amid concerns about rising intolerance.
But the law has also been increasingly used by religious minorities to report perceived violations.
In 2022, former sports and youth minister Roy Suryo was sentenced to nine months in prison after a court found him guilty of hate speech for retweeting pictures of then-President Joko Widodo's face superimposed on a Buddhist statue.
