A court in Iraq has sided with a young Christian woman in a landmark case involving religious identity, granting her request to correct her official religious status after she had been legally classified as Muslim under Iraqi law.
The woman, identified publicly only as Maryam, was raised in a Christian family but was automatically registered as Muslim under Article 26(2) of Iraq’s National Card Law No. 3 of 2016. The law requires minor children to adopt Islam if one parent converts to the religion.
ADF International, which supported her legal challenge, said the reclassification occurred after Maryam’s mother separated from her Christian father and later married a Muslim man.
After reaching adulthood, Maryam filed a lawsuit in January 2025 seeking to restore her Christian identity in official government records. The court has now ruled in her favor, recognizing her right to choose her own religion and to have that faith accurately reflected in the national database.
Kelsey Zorzi said the ruling represents an important affirmation of individual religious liberty and challenges the idea that governments should permanently define a child’s faith based on family circumstances.
“No state should have the power to permanently assign a person’s religion,” she said.
Although Maryam secured a legal victory, her two younger sisters remain officially classified as Muslim under Iraqi law. According to ADF International, similar legal petitions are expected to be filed on behalf of each sister once they reach legal adulthood.
The case may not yet be fully resolved, however. Under Iraqi personal status law, the government is expected to appeal the decision to the Iraqi Federal Court of Cassation, the nation’s highest court for such matters. If the ruling is upheld on appeal, legal experts say it could strengthen protections for religious freedom and shape future jurisprudence involving similar identity disputes.
ADF International noted that state-imposed religious classification remains a significant issue across several countries in the Middle East and Asia, including Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.
According to the organization, inaccurate or government-imposed religious designations can create wide-ranging consequences for religious minorities, including forced participation in religious education outside their faith tradition, restrictions related to marriage and inheritance, family law disputes, and exposure of non-Muslims to Islamic Sharia court systems.
