A recent report by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) found that the vast majority of the world’s population lives in countries where religious freedom is restricted. It identified authoritarian governments as the principal drivers of religious repression and Islamist extremism as a leading cause of persecution across Africa and Asia.
Against this backdrop, Iraq’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court for civil affairs, has affirmed the right of a young Christian woman known by the pseudonym Maryam to be classified as a Christian in the national database.
The ruling, hailed as a victory for religious freedom in the predominantly Muslim country, upholds a lower court’s decision from May and allows Maryam to be registered as a Christian, in accordance with her faith, rather than as a Muslim.
The decision corrects a record that had automatically classified her as a Muslim under Iraqi law.
Maryam's Story
According to the Christian legal-advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF International), which supported Maryam in her case, the young woman was raised in a Christian household until she and her sisters were forcibly converted to Islam, after their mother separated from their father and remarried a Muslim man.
Under Iraqi law, minor children are required to follow the religion of the parent who has converted to Islam.
Upon reaching the age of legal majority, however, Maryam applied in January 2025 to have her national database record corrected to reflect her Christian faith. The claim was upheld in May, in a ruling that ADF International said affirmed "her right to choose her religion".
ADF International says that while Maryam's two younger sisters remain legally registered as Muslims, it plans to pursue legal action on their behalf once they too reach the age of legal majority.
Commenting on the May ruling, ADF International's director of advocacy for global religious freedom, Kelsey Zorzi, said that everyone has the "fundamental right to choose and live according to their religion".
"This decision sends a clear message that individuals should not be bound for life by religious classifications imposed on them as children by their parents or by government policy", Zorzi said, adding that no state "should have the power to permanently assign a person's religion".
Addressing the Court of Cassation's affirmation of that decision, she said Maryam would now be free to have her Christian faith reflected in her state documents.
Zorzi added that Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq, and across the Middle East more broadly, "suffer real harm" when governments assign them a religion at odds with the faith they profess.
"In a region where marriage, inheritance, burial, and education are governed differently according to one's religion, it is essential that individuals – not states – retain the right to choose their own faith", she said.
Open Doors UK, a charity that advocates for and supports Christians facing persecution around the world, places Iraq at number 18 in its World Watch List, signifying that it has a significant record of Christian persecution.
According to the charity, all Christian churches in Iraq face threats of violence, intolerance and discrimination, originating from both Islamic extremist groups and government agencies.
On the topic of conversion, Open Doors UK notes that converting away from Islam is considered "deeply shameful" in Iraq, with Christians facing routine pressure to recant their faith from both their families and the wider community.
Murder, sexual abuse, discrimination and exploitation are all realities for Christian men and women in Iraq, the charity adds. It says that while Iraq fell one place in its World Watch List this year, that was attributable to worsening conditions elsewhere rather than to any improvement in conditions for Christians in Iraq.
A Brighter Future?
Despite this, the Christian community in Iraq has received renewed attention in recent years.
In 2021, Pope Francis undertook a historic trip to Iraq, spending several days traveling through the country despite serious threats leveled against him.
Francis, the first pope to visit Iraq, notably traveled to territory previously devastated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), including the cities of Mosul and Qaraqosh. Both cities had been under the militant group's control just seven years earlier, with religious and ethnic minorities, including Christians and Yazidis, forced either to stay and endure the violence or to flee.
The pope's visit was warmly received by local Christians, whom he encouraged to become fully involved in Iraqi society as full citizens of the country.
More recently, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said that the return of Christian families who had gone into exile was a "national and government priority", and that incentives would be offered to encourage them back.
"The return of Christians who were forced to leave the country due to the difficult circumstances Iraq endured is a national and government priority", al-Zaidi said, adding that its Christians are an "active component" and an "essential part of Iraqi society".
They are a "key partner in building the state and shaping Iraq's history and future", the country's prime minister said.
Approximately 1.5 million Christians lived in Iraq in the year 2000, but that number has fallen to the low hundreds of thousands today.