Converts from Islam face rights violations

Apostasy is a growing and often overlooked human rights concern according to Ziya Meral, a Turkish convert from Islam to Christianity. Writing in The Guardian on the release of new research findings, he said that converts face significant suffering.

Though the death penalty for apostasy is only a possibility in Sudan, some Malaysian states, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Iran, apostates across the Middle East face a broad spectrum of other rights violations.

These include the annulment of marriage, removal of custody and inheritance rights, termination of citizenship, confiscation of identity papers and the loss of further social and economic rights, as well as the risk of extra-judicial killings.

Reformist Muslims in the West argue that the justification of the death penalty for apostasy is based on a misinterpretation of the Qur’an. However, “arguments about the exact text of Qur’an do little to help apostates suffering gross human rights abuses today,” Merel said.

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