By Kevin Kim
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
CAIRO, Egypt – An Egyptian Christian woman is going to jail for three years because her father’s brief stint as an Islam 45 years ago made her a Muslim, not a Christian as her official papers say.
Shadia Nagui Ibrahim on Thursday was charged with fraud for stating her religion as Christianity on her marriage certificate. She was unaware that her father, who left when she was two, had once converted to Islam in 1962. Her father’s conversion automatically made her a Muslim because children in Egypt must take their father’s religion. Even though he came back three years later and re-converted to Christianity, her status as a Muslim stood the same.
Christians in Egypt face many hardships solely because of their religious affiliation. While Egyptians typically have little difficulty changing religion from Christianity to Islam, changing from Islam to another religion such as Christianity is socially risky and considered apostasy.
Compounding the hardship is the state’s reluctance to allow citizens to put their religion of choice on identification cards. In Egypt, all citizens are required to carry identification cards once they reach the age of 16. Because the citizens have only three choices to choose from, this policy forces members of minority faiths to obtain forged documents that can result in criminal prosecution.
When Ibrahim’s father reconverted to Christianity, he forged his document to say he was a Christian. The authorities eventually caught him and told his daughter that she was still a Muslim and charged her with “providing false information on official documents” for stating that she was a Christian when she got married in 1982. She got sentenced for three years after a brief court session.
Also under Egyptian law, Muslim woman are not allowed to marry a Christian man.
For more information, please see:
AFP – Egypt Copt jailed 45 years after father’s conversion – 22 November 2007
Reuters – Egypt denies ID papers to Baha’is, converts – 12 November 2007
BBC News – Egypt ‘denies minority beliefs’ – 12 November 2007
