Egyptian woman freed in religious identity case

A Coptic Christian woman jailed several months ago was released Sunday at the order of Egypt’s attorney general, Agence France-Presse reported today. She was jailed due to a mix-up over her religion after her father converted to Islam over 45 years ago, her lawyer said.

“The attorney general felt that the judgment was made on the basis of erroneous information,” said her lawyer Ramses El Naggar.

“Shadia Nagui Ibrahim, 47, was sentenced to three years in prison after she listed her religion as Christian not knowing her father’s three-year term as a Muslim in 1962 made her official religion Islam,” the article said. “Nagui Ibrahim left home when his daughter Shadia was two, converted to Islam but reconverted to Christianity and had his documents forged to change his religion back to its original.”

The article adds: “In 1996, the man who forged Ibrahim’s documents was detained for falsifying dozens of documents and confessed to changing Ibrahim’s papers. Authorities detained Ibrahim and also informed his daughter that on paper, Ibrahim was still a Muslim and therefore so was she.”

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