Indonesian TikTokker faces blasphemy charges, jail term for eating ‘just OK’ pork skin
- The 32-year-old travel influencer, who is Muslim, said this was not her first taste of pork, having first tried it when she was 24 in Sri Lanka
- She apologised to the public but was charged with two articles including blasphemy and spreading hate speech content, which carry a maximum five-year jail term
Lina Lutfiawati, who is not of Indian descent but is obsessed with all things Bollywood, posted a video on March 9 of her trying pork skin for the first time, while travelling in the Hindu-majority island of Bali.
“Bismillah [in the name of Allah], today I think I will be removed from my family card because I’m curious [about the taste] of pork skin, so today I am violating rukun iman [the six basic principles of Islam],” said the 32-year-old travel influencer, adding that the idea of eating it “makes me shiver”.
She also said this was not her first taste of pork. “I ate pork meat yesterday and it didn’t make me feel anything [weird].” She said she first tried pork in Sri Lanka when she was 24 years old, when she “could not speak English then”.
“But this time I am self-aware,” she said. Upon eating it, she winced and said the pork skin tasted like “dried out beef” and that “it isn’t as good as everyone said, it’s just OK”. She concluded the video by apologising to her family, saying that “this is just for content”.
However, what she perceived as seemingly innocuous content was enough to land her in hot water after a Muslim cleric in the city of Palembang in South Sumatra province reported her to the police for blasphemy on March 15. The local branch of the Indonesian Ulema Council, the country’s top Islamic scholars body, also released a fatwa, or a ruling, that her video was classified as blasphemy.