CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- In an unprecedented court verdict,
Christian actress Hala Sidqi has won a 10-year court battle to divorce her
husband, an outcome previously obtained in Egypt only by Muslims.
She is the first Christian woman granted divorce under a law, known as Khula'a,
which has made it easier for a Muslim woman in Egypt to get a divorce without
her husband's consent.
The law allows immediate divorce if three months of attempted reconciliation
fails to bring the couple back together, or six months if the woman has
children. Under Islamic law, men may divorce wives promptly, without court
authority.
When the new law took effect, Christian clergy said that if a Christian woman
changed her denomination from that of her husband she could be granted a
divorce. Sidqi changed her affiliation from Coptic Orthodoxy, the church of her
husband, to the Syriac Church.
Egyptian Christians are mostly Coptic Orthodox, and that church does not allow
divorce except in extreme cases such as adultery. Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic
leader, recently approved of believers separating if reconciliation is
impossible, but not their right to remarry.
Christians comprise about 10 percent of Egypt's 67 million population.