An Indonesian social media influencer, Ratu Thalisa, has been sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison for blasphemy after making a controversial remark about Jesus Christ in a TikTok video.
Thalisa, a Muslim transgender woman with nearly 450,000 TikTok followers, made the comment during a live broadcast on October 2, 2024. In response to a viewer who suggested she should cut her hair to look more masculine, she held up an image of Jesus and remarked, “You should not look like a woman. You should cut your hair so that you will look like his father.”
Following her statement, five Christian groups filed complaints, leading to her arrest on October 8. A court in North Sumatra province convicted her under Indonesia’s Electronic Information and Transactions (EIT) law, ruling that her comments could disrupt public order and religious harmony. In addition to her prison sentence, Thalisa was fined approximately $6,200.
Amnesty International condemned the verdict, calling it “a shocking attack on freedom of expression.” Usman Hamid, the organization’s executive director in Indonesia, argued that the EIT law is being increasingly used to silence individuals rather than protect against genuine religious incitement.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has seen a rise in religious conservatism, with blasphemy laws frequently used to target religious minorities and critics of Islam. Similar cases in recent years include the 2023 conviction of social media influencer Lina Mukherjee, who was sentenced to two years in prison for reciting an Islamic prayer before eating pork in a TikTok video.
Rights groups have urged Indonesian authorities to “quash Thalisa’s conviction” and reform the country’s blasphemy laws, which they say are increasingly being weaponized to suppress free speech.
