How compulsory ID cards restrict freedom of religion

For many years compulsory ID cards have been responsible for creating serious human rights challenges for Christians and other minorities in Islamic countries. But the introduction of compulsory digital ID cards takes the threat to freedom of religion to a whole new level.

Background

Compulsory digital ID cards are being rolled out in Iran, with Pakistan’s government also beginning a similar pilot project, funded by the World Bank. A number of other Islamic countries such as UAE already use them, while others, such as Egypt and Malaysia, are in the process of rolling them out to all citizens.

How compulsory ID cards affect Christian minorities:

         Christians converts from Islam

In a whole range of Islamic countries, those who have converted to Christianity from Muslim family backgrounds have faced severe problems with compulsory ID cards because the ID card either physically records a person’s religion, or links to a government database which does so. Whilst governments and courts will speedily change a person’s recorded religion if they convert to Islam, it is almost impossible for someone whose religion is recorded as ‘Islam’ to get this changed to say they are now a Christian. In fact, in some countries, even trying to do so can lead to a criminal charge of apostasy from Islam.

The use of compulsory ID cards which record a person’s religion also has huge practical implications in countries where shari’a forms part of the law, as it prohibits a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man. So, if a Christian woman has ‘Islam’ on her identity card because her family were Muslim, she cannot legally marry a Christian man – and if she does so in a Christian ceremony she risks being accused of committing both zina (a sexual offence in shari’a) and apostasy.

Case study 1) Mariam Ibrahim - Sudan

This can even happen to someone brought up as a Christian. In 2014, Sudanese Christian Mariam Ibrahim, was sentenced to flogging and execution for adultery and apostasy. Her ‘crime’ was that she had married a Christian man, while officially recognised by Sudan’s government as a Muslim because her father, who had abandoned her Christian mother while she was young, was a Muslim.

Case study 2) Lina Joy – Malaysia

Even in more moderate countries such as Malaysia and Pakistan, the existence of separate family law systems for Muslims and Christians means a person born into a Muslim family is trapped into living under shari’a family  law for life – unless they can get the religion on their ID card changed.

If a Christian who has converted from Islam tries to change the religion on their identity card, not only will they find this almost impossible in a whole range of countries, but even attempting to do so also exposes them to the risk of vigilantes seeking to kill them for apostasy. Lina Joy – a Christian convert from Islam who in 2007 unsuccessfully took her case right up to the highest (Federal) court in Malaysia so that she could legally marry her Christian fiancé – now lives in hiding. While in 2020 Malaysia’s Federal Court reaffirmed the ruling in her case, saying that the national registration department can take account of shari’a when issuing ID cards.

Vigilante violence

Even living as a Christian while having ‘Islam’ on one’s ID card creates a serious risk to life, as it identifies the person as a convert from Islam and exposes them to the risk for vigilantes seeking to carry out the shari’a penalty for apostasy, i.e. execution.

Forced conversions

Because shari’a recognises a conversion to Islam made under compulsion as a valid conversion, forced conversions are a significant problem in a number of Islamic countries. Anyone who subsequently tries to convert back to Christianity faces similar problems to Christians who have converted from a Muslim family background: they are viewed as apostates deserving death and cannot get the religion on their ID card changed back to Christianity. In countries such as Egypt and Pakistan, many have coped with this by using a photocopy of their original (Christian) ID card – a common practice in such countries as people don’t like to carry their actual ID card in case it gets stolen. But the advent of digital ID will make this impossible.

False registrations:

A related issue is false registration, which can easily happen in countries with high levels of illiteracy. Sufiyan Masih, a Christian brick kiln worker in Pakistan, was falsely registered as a Muslim when his employer applied for his national identity card for him. His employer then claimed he had converted him to Islam. Sufiyan was only able to get this changed after a Western legal NGO took up his case and fought a six-year battle on his behalf through Pakistan’s courts.

Use of ID cards to stir up anti-Christian riots in Pakistan

Since 1997 there have been a whole series of communal attacks on Christian residential areas of Pakistan with Muslim mobs falsely accusing one or more local Christians of Islamic blasphemy. Leaving a Christian’s ID card details at the scene are a way of implicating Christians in such set-up accusations. As Lindisfarne Analysis reported at the time, in August 2023 pages of a defaced Qur’an were found tied to a gas meter at a crossroads in Jaranwala, Pakistan. Also attached were the names and contact details of two local Christian men, including their national identity card details. What followed was described by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan as “a series of brutal mob-led attacks against the local Christian community” which destroyed 24 churches and around 100 Christians homes.

Discrimination

Finally, part of the daily discrimination Christian minorities face in many Islamic countries happens precisely because they have to produce their national ID cards which identify them as Christians, in order to access basic services such as banking, mobile registration and government services such as healthcare.

Digital ID cards – the new threat

The advent of digital ID cards presents a whole new level of threat to freedom of religion for Christian minorities in the Islamic world.

-          Unlike physical ID cards – the details on digital ID cards such as religion, could be changed centrally without the consent or even knowledge of the person concerned.

-          They could also be blocked centrally – preventing Christians from accessing essential services such as banking, telecommunications – and even voting.

-          Because digital IDs are often on phones which can be stolen – there is a real risk of identity theft. There is already a problem in countries such as Egypt with false Islamic blasphemy allegations being made against Christians by setting up social media accounts in their names. Digital ID cards on mobile phones have the potential to make this much worse.

-          But perhaps the biggest risk of all is that digital ID cards on mobile phones potentially enable the government to track where Christians are, where they go and even who they visit. That is now a very real risk in countries such as Iran.

The introduction of compulsory digital ID cards also undermines one of the foundational principles on which freedom of religion originally developed in countries such as the UK and USA. That freedom of religion does not exist because the government allows citizens to practice their faith, but because it is a natural “human right”.