Medan:
The Indonesian court on Monday sentenced a transgender woman to jail for more than two years, for a comment on Jesus’ hair online, a local official said, a local official said he was highly condemned by the rights groups in a case.
Ratu Thalisa was found guilty by a court in the city of Medan on the western island of the Western Island to spread hatred under a ticketing online hatred-speech law in a ticketing livestream, Dariama, a local prosecutor’s office, told the AFP.
The judge handed over to the woman – a Muslim according to court documents – two years and 10 months sentence, he said.
In October, Ratu Thalisa was allegedly shown talking to a picture of Jesus on her smartphone and asked to cut her long hair.
Ratu Thalisa, who sold beauty products online, was allegedly responding to a comment that was said that she was asking her hair to cut her hair to avoid looking like a woman.
The rights groups, which have greatly uncovered the electronic information law and open to misuse against religious minorities, abandoned the sentence.
In a statement, Osman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, said, “The jail sentence is a shocking attack on Ratu Thalisa’s freedom of expression.”
“While Indonesia should prohibit the advocacy of religious hatred that encourages discrimination, enmity or violence, Ratu Thalisa’s speech act does not reach that extent.”
Prosecutors immediately appealed for Monday’s decision, which was more generous than their demand for more than four years. Ratu has seven days to decide whether to appeal.
Some 280 million South East Asian nations have a significant number of religious minorities – including Christians, Hindus and Buddhists – which is targeted by radical Islamic groups amidst concerns about increasing intolerance.
But the law has also been used to report alleged violations by religious minorities.
In 2022, former Sports and Youth Minister Roy Surrio was sentenced to nine -month prison, when a court found him guilty of abusive language for the then President Joko Vidodo’s face on the Buddhist statue.
(Tagstotransite) Transgender (T) Transgender Women’s Jail (T) Indonesia News
