Jakarta, IO – Lina Mukherjee, 32, a TikTok celebrity with two million followers, was named a suspect in alleged blasphemy case by the South Sumatra Police criminal investigation bureau (Ditreskrimsus), Wednesday (3/5).
Lina stirred up controversy with her content where she was seen eating pork skins. The video, uploaded on March 9, went viral and has been watched nearly 7 million times.
Police was alerted of Lina’s action on March 15 by M. Syarif Hidayat, a religious teacher in Palembang. He accused her of committing blasphemy “for consciously eating pork skin cracker even though she is a Muslim.”
Ditreskrimsus director Agung Marlianto Basuki said investigators have questioned multiple witnesses including linguists, legal experts and clerics. In the video, she can be heard repeatedly saying that she has violated Islamic teaching by eating pork. As a result, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) pronounced her action blasphemous.
Prior to her being named a suspect, police has summoned her several times. But she did not show up for no apparent reason. After police threatened to arrest her, she made clarifications on social media and went to the South Sumatra Police Station to provide statements.
In response to her status, Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chairman Zainal Arifin said Lina has been criminalized using “rubber articles whose interpretation is often very subjective.”
“This is often influenced by sociological factors, there is community pressure both offline and online, there are phrases that went viral and used by law enforcement officers to convict someone for doing blasphemy. This is very dangerous because it depends on personal interpretation,” said Zainal.
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Gus Fayyadl, a young Muslim intellectual from Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) concurred. According to him, Lina’s should not be named a suspect because she did not know the law for uttering the word “Bismillah” for things forbidden by her religion, so her motive needs to be investigated further.
On Wednesday (4/5), Lina underwent her first questioning. She said she was first called as a witness and then named a suspect and detained until an unspecified time. She admitted that she and her attorney were surprised and could not believe that she was suddenly named a suspect and detained at her first questioning. If convicted, she could face up to five years in jail. (compiled from different sources/un)