Indonesia Jails Woman For Blasphemy Over TikTok Food Video

An Indonesian court has jailed a woman for two years after she was found guilty of breaching the country’s blasphemy laws in a TikTok food video she posted in March.

The video showed Lina Lutfiawati reciting a Muslim prayer before eating some crispy pork skin and quickly amassing millions of views. Pork is considered ‘haram’, or not permissible, under Islamic law.

On Tuesday, the court in the Indonesian city of Palembang, on the southern part of Sumatra island, found the 33-year-old deliberately “spread information that was intended to incite hate or individual/group enmity based on religion” and ordered her to pay a fine of 250 million rupiah ($16,249.59).

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. The court said Lutfiawati, who also goes by the name Lina Mukherjee, identified as a Muslim.

Lutfiawati issued a public apology for the video and expressed surprise at the verdict. “I know that I am wrong, but I did not expect this punishment,” Lutfiawati said on the local news station MetroTV.

The case is the latest in a number of blasphemy cases around the country, mostly against those deemed to have insulted Islam, that analysts have said undermine Indonesia’s reputation for moderation.

In August, the head of an Islamic boarding school that allowed men and women to pray alongside each other and women to become preachers was charged with blasphemy and hate speech.

JAZEERA