Egypt frees jailed Coptic woman
Monday, January 14, 2008
Source ::: AFP
CAIRO • Egypt's attorney general yesterday ordered the release of a Coptic Christian woman jailed due to a mix-up over her religion after her father briefly converted to Islam more than 45 years ago, her lawyer said.
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.
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.
Children in Egypt automatically take their father's religion and because her father's documents were forged, Shadia's official religion was Islam. She was arrested for providing false information on official documents and sentenced to three years in prison on November 21 after listing her religion as Christian on her marriage certificate in 1982.
"The attorney general felt that the judgement was made on the basis of erroneous information," said her lawyer Ramses El Naggar.
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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