Christian woman wrongly arrested for converting from Islam: Nigerian court
A Federal High Court in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria has ruled that Islamic religious police have no authority to arrest a woman over her conversion from Islam to Christianity. The ruling curbs the reach of Hisbah, religious police units that enforce Sharia law.
The woman, identified by the pseudonym Sarah, is 22, according to Christian legal advocacy group ADF International, which supported her case.
She fled her family home in Kano State in 2025 after suffering abuse from her elder siblings, who were also trying to force her into a marriage she didn't want. Her parents had died years earlier.
Sarah took refuge with a Christian family, the Abaras, and converted to Christianity while living with them. Her siblings worked with local Hisbah police to have her arrested, and she was detained for four days, during which she was beaten and pressured to accept the marriage she had fled.
Fearing further threats after her release, the Abara family helped Sarah relocate to the city of Jos in Plateau State in January 2026. Her siblings then accused the Abaras of kidnapping her, and the family was arraigned without legal counsel on Feb. 26.
Sarah had filed a rights enforcement petition in a neighboring state on Feb. 24. On May 26, the court ruled in her favor, ordering Kano State and the Hisbah to stop pursuing her arrest over her conversion or her refusal to marry.
The court said the police’s actions were a “flagrant violation” of Sarah’s fundamental right to human dignity and freedom of religion, and it ordered financial compensation for the violations against her rights.
Sean Nelson, senior counsel for global religious freedom at parent group Alliance Defending Freedom, said the ruling affirms that Hisbah has no jurisdiction over Christians or other non-Muslims, and called the criminal case against the Abaras outrageous.
A criminal case against the Abara family remains open in Kano, where ADF is backing their defense, arguing the family helped Sarah escape danger rather than kidnapping her. The Abaras are out on bail.
Sarah said the Abara family kept her safe when she had nowhere else to go and introduced her to Christianity, and that she is thankful the court recognized her freedom to convert.
ADF International said Nigeria is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a Christian, with thousands killed for their faith each year, and that Hisbah units in several northern states have increasingly targeted Christian converts and those who support them.
The group also represented Rhoda Jatau, a Christian mother who spent 19 months in prison after being accused of sharing a video condemning the killing of a Christian student, before her acquittal in December 2024.
In 2025, a man identified by the pseudonym David was acquitted after being arrested and tortured for helping persecuted converts flee violence, the group said.
President Donald Trump said last October that Nigeria had failed to protect its Christian communities amid violence he said posed an “existential” threat to Christianity in the region.
Trump had the State Department place Nigeria on its list of countries of particular concern, a designation for governments accused of tolerating severe religious freedom violations, in a move meant to pressure Nigeria’s government. Nigerian officials have played down the violence and rejected claims that Christians face genocide.
A lawyer who uses the pseudonym Jabez Musa and advocates for Christian women and girls abducted and forced to convert to Islam told The Christian Post earlier that U.S. military intervention in Nigeria over the past year has not stopped escalating Christian persecution.
Musa said the U.S. bombed attackers with jets and it would have helped had the campaign continued, but it was not sustained. He said attackers have regrouped, attacks have increased in every region, and violence has spread into southern Nigeria.
Islamist violence has killed thousands of people in Nigeria’s mostly Christian Middle Belt farming region in recent years, and critics say the government has failed to protect its citizens. The attacks in this region are launched mostly by Islamic Fulani militias.
The U.S. launched airstrikes against Islamic State terrorists in northern Nigeria last Christmas Day and deployed troops in early 2026 for counterterrorism operations against Islamic State-linked terrorists. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the effort had killed hundreds of militants, but most U.S. troops were withdrawn from the country last month, a move Musa believes left the intervention incomplete.
