Iraq: Christian woman must convert to Islam, according to Iraqi court

An Iraqi court has told a Christian woman in Dohuk that she and her children must convert to Islam, as reported by Rudaw on 1 June 2024. When Evlin Joseph wanted to obtain her national ID card, the authorities told her that when she was 15 years old, her mother had converted to Islam after previously divorcing her father and marrying a Muslim man. According to Iraq’s Personal Status Law, if a parent converts to Islam, any children under 18 should also adopt Islam.

World Watch Research analyst Henriette Kats comments: “This situation clearly has a major impact on Evlin Joseph’s entire family. She has a Christian husband, their marriage has church registration, they have three children who have been brought up as Christians, and all her official documents refer to the family as Christian. But now – according to the law – she is considered to be Muslim, and a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Christian man. Her children are also – according to the law – Muslim, which means they are not allowed to receive Christian education. In the future, it will be more difficult (if not impossible) for them to find a Christian marriage partner: Christians generally do not want to marry someone who is registered as Muslim as their children will then automatically be officially Muslim.”

Henriette Kats continues: “Iraqi church leaders have been protesting against the confusion caused by this Personal Status Law for a long time, since there are a significant number of Christians in Iraq who have lived their entire lives as Christians but are unable to raise a Christian family due to being officially registered as Muslim. As reported by Kurdistan24 on 27 May 2024, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq and the World, stated at a recent congress hosted by the Catholic University in Erbil that ‘Iraq's Constitution guarantees equality for all, but it must be a sovereign nation that respects its citizens, does not discriminate between communities, and provides a suitable life for its citizens.’ It is clear that the current Personal Status Law, which is based on Shariah law, contradicts this.”

Henriette Kats adds: “The first week of June marks ten years since the Islamic State group (IS) launched an offensive on Mosul and Tikrit. By the end of June 2014, IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi announced the formation of a caliphate stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq (Wilson Center, 28 October 2019). Life for Christians in the region has never been the same since then.”