By Emmanuel Oti Acheampong
Lina Lutfiawati, an influencer from Indonesia, has received a two-year jail sentence after a video of her eating pork rinds angered the nation’s top Muslim clerics.
Lina Lutfiawati’s videos of eating delectable meals featuring fish, crab, clams, prawns, and ribs have earned the Indonesian influencer millions of fans on TikTok.
But when Ms. Lina, 33, ate pork rinds on camera in March, her TikTok video of the meal drew the attention of a different audience: Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body, the Ulema Council. On Tuesday September, she was sentenced to two years in prison and fined the equivalent of $16,269 for blasphemy.
Ms. Lina’s video was sensitive, not only because eating or even touching pigs is considered abominable. Before she began eating, she said “Bismillah” — Arabic for “in the name of Allah.” Posting the video in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population—nearly 90 percent of Indonesia’s 275 million people are Muslim—made her stunt even more contentious.
Source: The New York Times