Experts sound alarm as Indonesia’s controversial blasphemy law bites again
Experts have sounded the alarm over a brutal rule that is increasingly catching people out in Australia’s favourite holiday destination.
Indonesia’s controversial blasphemy law has bitten again, with the arrest of a transgender influencer in the city of Medan in the country’s North Sumatra Province.
The influencer, who goes by the name Ratu Thalisa, alias Ratu Entok, found herself in hot water when she took to a TikTok live stream earlier in October, holding a mobile phone and showing the camera a picture of Jesus.
While gesturing to the picture of a robed Jesus on her account @ratuentokglowskincare, which has more than 451,000 followers, the skincare influencer proceeded to launch into a shocking tirade.
“Don’t look like a woman, your hair must be shaved … like a monk. You shave, you shave your hair … yeah. Don’t look like a woman, you shave, shave so that you look like his father. Men should be bald, closely shaved … shaved,” she said during the rambling livestream, the saved footage of which went viral.
It is thought that her comments were in response to another account commenting and telling Entok to cut her own hair in order not to look like a woman.
Entok, who is Muslim and owns her own skincare company, was arrested on October 10 after several Christian groups in the city of Medan filed police reports accusing her of committing blasphemy by making derogatory comments about Jesus’ appearance.
Despite being officially secular, Indonesia has a population of more than 270 million people and 87 per cent are Muslim – making Indonesia the most populous Muslim nation on earth.
However, around 30 per cent of North Sumatra’s population is Christian, while 66 per cent is Muslim, although it is unusual for members of Indonesia’s Christian minority to file blasphemy reports against members of other religions.
Usman Hamid, the head of Amnesty Indonesia, told news.com.au that Amnesty recorded 120 blasphemy cases across Indonesia from March 2018 to June 2024.
“Blasphemy laws are often used to protect the dominant interpretation of Islamic orthodoxy, but they can be invoked by individuals from any recognised religious community, including Christians,” he said.
Indonesia’s blasphemy law carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and was first introduced in 1965 under Indonesia’s first President Sukarno.
The law was originally drafted to clamp down on Indigenous beliefs across the archipelago, and there are only six recognised religions in Indonesia, including Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.
In recent years, however, there has been criticism from activists and human rights groups that the blasphemy law, which also covers content posted online under Indonesia’s Electronic Information and Transactions Law, has been increasingly used to jail minorities, including ethnic minorities, members of Indonesia’s LGBTQI community and women.
In 2017, the Chinese-Indonesian former governor of Jakarta, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, was sentenced to two years in prison for insulting Islam following comments he made about a verse from the Koran in 2016.
In 2018, a Chinese-Indonesian woman named Meliana was jailed for 18 months after being found guilty of committing blasphemy when she complained about the volume of the speakers broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer at her local mosque in the city of Tanjung Balai, also in North Sumatra Province.
In 2023, Muslim influencer Lina Lutfiawati, who uses the stage name Lina Mukherjee, was jailed for two years after she made a video on TikTok which showed her eating crispy pork skin.
Mukherjee was arrested in South Sumatra after a Muslim cleric filed a police report that accused the food influencer of blasphemy as the consumption of pork is forbidden or haram in Islam.
Andreas Harsono, a researcher at Human Rights Watch Indonesia, told news.com.au that “Indonesia’s blasphemy law is now having another toxicity level with Christians demanding Ratu Entok be prosecuted for saying Jesus should not have long hair”.
“Indonesia usually sees only Muslims demanding blasphemy prosecutions. It’s rare to see Christians making similar demands. This toxic law should simply be ended,” he said.
“Indonesian authorities should start having a public discussion to revoke this toxic law.”
While some have questioned whether Entok has been deliberately targeted for being openly transgender, Laelawati – an Indonesian LGBTQI activist and the head of Komunitas Sahabat OHDA, a group that supports individuals who are HIV positive – said that Entok’s arrest was inevitable given the context and content of her online comments.
“It was clear that it was going to be reported because it was a blasphemy case, whatever the reason or justification given by Ratu Entok, because she showed a clear picture of Jesus. As an online celebrity, she knew the possible consequences of her actions,” said Laelawati, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.
“It is of no relevance that she is transgender. Now, anyone can use social media, for lots of reasons like business, promotion or just to create a sensation.
“In the case of Ratu Entok, it is a coincidence that she is transgender.”
For her part, Entok apologised for the furore that her livestream caused in a TikTok video posted before her arrest on October 4, entitled “From the bottom of my heart”, which has now racked up more than 1.4 million views.
“Everyone who knows Entok surely knows that Entok is someone who would never commit blasphemy,” she said, while apologising to “anyone who was offended”.
The influencer also apologised again through comments made by her lawyer, Rahmat Junjung Sianturi.
“First of all, I apologise on behalf of our client Ratu Entok to our Christian brothers and sisters for this incident,” Sianturi said on October 10.
“We hope that everyone can forgive our client.”
Aisyah Llewellyn is a freelance journalist based in Indonesia
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