A woman in Indonesia has been jailed for two years after saying an Islamic prayer before eating pork in a viral TikTok video.
The video showed Lina Lutfiawati, who has more than two million followers, saying a brief prayer that translates to “in the name of God” before eating a piece of crispy pork skin.
Lutfiawati, who identifies as Muslim, was convicted of inciting religious hatred and was also ordered to pay a fine of 250 million rupiah (£13,217).
After going on trial on blasphemy charges, she expressed regret and apologised in a post on her social media.
She apologised again after Tuesday’s verdict: “I am surprised. I have apologised many times. Actually, I know that I was wrong, but I did not expect the sentence to be two years.”
Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world and consuming pork is considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam.
Critics have said Indonesia’s strict blasphemy laws have been used to erode a long-standing reputation for tolerance and diversity in the country.
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Usman Hamid, the executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, said what happened to Lutfiawati was “not surprising”, despite government promises to protect freedom of expression.
He said the law had also been abused to target minority groups and dissenters.
Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian, was imprisoned for two years in 2017 after being found guilty of blasphemy for quoting a verse from the Koran during a campaign speech.
In 2018, an Indonesian court sentenced an ethnic Chinese woman who complained about a noisy mosque to 18 months in prison for blasphemy.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
