Australians have been warned Indonesia‘s strict religious blasphemy laws after an influencer was arrested for saying on a TikTok video that Jesus has to cut his hair.
Ratu Thalisa, who also goes by Ratu Entok, is a transgender celebrity in her home city of Medan in the country’s North Sumatra province. She has over half a million followers on social media and also runs her successful Glow skincare business.
In a now-deleted TikTok live stream on October 4, Ms Thalisa held up a photo of Jesus on her phone in response to comments that she should cut her own hair.
“Don’t look like a woman, your hair should be shaved … like a monk,” she said during the live stream, which went viral after some viewers saved the footage.
‘You shave your hair… yes. Don’t look like a woman, shave so you look like his father. Men should be bald, clean shaven.’
A number of individuals and Christian groups complained about the live stream to authorities, North Sumatra regional police said.
North Sumatra’s population is about 30 percent Christian, much higher than the Christian population throughout Indonesia as a whole, which is about 11 percent.
Islam is the country’s largest religion by population and is practiced by about 87 percent of the people.
Influencer Ratu Entok arrested under Indonesian blasphemy laws after saying Jesus should get a haircut in TikTok video (pictured)
Indonesian blasphemy laws cover the country’s main religions, including Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism and apply to comments made online (pictured, tourists in Kuta, Bali)
Indonesia’s blasphemy laws cover the country’s main religions, which also include Hinduism and Buddhism, and also apply to comments made online under the Electronic Information and Transactions Act.
Head of Public Relations of the North Sumatra Police, Senior Commissioner Hadi Wahyudi, said officers arrested Ms Thalisa at her home a few days after the live stream on October 8 and she is being investigated by the cyber directorate.
The law, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, has been criticized by human rights activists in recent years.
‘In Indonesia they usually only see Muslims demanding slander prosecutions. It is rare to see Christians making similar claims. This toxic law must simply be ended,’ said Andreas Harsono, a researcher at Human Rights Watch Indonesia. news.com.au.
Usman Hamid, the head of Amnesty Indonesia, said the organization had recorded 120 blasphemy cases across Indonesia from March 2018 to June 2024.
Between its introduction in 1965 and 2005, it was used in only eight cases.
Ms Entok apologized for the video (pictured) and said she did not intend to offend
Some of the recent spike in cases include a woman who complained about the volume of loudspeakers broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer and a Muslim influencer who shared a video of herself eating a crispy pork dish, which in Islam is forbidden.
Ms Thalisa has since apologized to ‘anyone who was offended’ by the video in a new video titled ‘From the bottom of my heart’, which has more than one million views.
Her lawyer also apologized ‘to our Christian brothers and sisters’.
“We hope that everyone can forgive our client,” they said.
