{"id":29563,"date":"2022-01-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/press\/married-couple-facing-adultery-trial-following-husbands-conversion-5547\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T19:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T18:05:51","slug":"married-couple-facing-adultery-trial-following-husbands-conversion-5547","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/press\/married-couple-facing-adultery-trial-following-husbands-conversion-5547\/","title":{"rendered":"Married couple facing adultery trial following husband’s conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sudanese married couple originally from South Kordofan but residing in Gezira State, is on trial for adultery after the husband converted to Christianity. Nada Hamad Koko and her husband Hamoda Teya Kaffi\u2019s trial began in 2021 in El-Bageer, Gezira State, and is set to continue this month.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case began in 2018 when Ms Koko\u2019s family discovered that her husband, Mr Kaffi, had converted to Christianity, and filed for a divorce. The law prohibits a Muslim woman from being married to a non-Muslim man, and based on the evidence of Mr Kaffi\u2019s change of religion, the court granted the divorce and annulled the marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the divorce was finalised, Ms Koko returned to her family with the couple\u2019s children, a son and daughter who are now aged five and three respectively. In August 2021, she decided to reunite with Mr Kaffi. Upon discovering this Ms Koko\u2019s family filed a criminal case. The couple was arrested and the general prosecutor charged them with adultery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since there is now no penalty for changing one\u2019s faith following the decriminalisation of apostasy<\/a> in July 2020, Ms Koko informed the prosecutor that she had also converted to Christianity. This renders her a non-Muslim under the law, and allows her to marry another non-Muslim. Nevertheless, the prosecutor deemed her conversion unacceptable, and the criminal case has proceeded to trial. However, had Ms Koko become a Christian while her husband remained a Muslim, their marriage would not have been annulled and the family would not have been separated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case is similar to that of Meriam Ibrahim<\/a>, the Christian woman who faced trial for both apostasy and adultery in 2014. The court ruled that she was a Muslim due to her father\u2019s religious identity and despite the fact she had never practised Islam. Her marriage to her Christian husband was annulled, and both parties were found guilty of adultery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CSW\u2019s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: \u201cWe are deeply concerned by the criminal prosecution of Ms Koko and Mr Kaffi, whose case highlights the fact that the failure to reform Sudan\u2019s legal landscape has opened the door to legal harassment. We call for the immediate dismissal of criminal charges against this couple, and urge further legal reform to ensure that the right to freedom of religion or belief, including the right to change one\u2019s religion or belief, is fully guaranteed to every Sudanese citizen. The fact that these cases are being prosecuted in the context of the military coup<\/a> and a state of emergency illustrates the military\u2019s objective of systematically obstructing and reversing the progressive advances made during the transitional period. This case also illustrates the importance of adopting a gender perspective within the broader legal reform process.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sudanese married couple originally from South Kordofan but residing in Gezira State, is on trial for adultery after the husband converted to Christianity.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":43700,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[152,157],"class_list":["post-29563","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-sub-saharan-africa","regions-sudan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40147,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29563\/revisions\/40147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29563"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=29563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}