Afghan president orders review of marital law

KABUL — The Afghan president said Saturday he had ordered a review of a new law that critics say makes it legal for men to rape their wives, responding to criticism from around the world that included sharp comments from President Barack Obama.

The law, signed by President Hamid Karzai last month, is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shiite community, which makes up 10 percent to 20 percent of the country's 30 million people. Under one article legislating the frequency of sexual relations between Shiite husbands and wives, husbands have the right to sex every fourth night unless the wife is ill.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women has said the law "legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband."

Asked about the law at a news conference Saturday following the NATO conference in Strasbourg, France, Obama described it as "abhorrent." He said the U.S. is communicating its views to the Karzai government.

"We think that it is very important for us to be sensitive to local culture but we also think that there are certain basic principles that all nations should uphold, and respect for women and respect for their freedom and integrity is an important principle," Obama said.

Even before Obama's comments, Karzai said he ordered the Justice Ministry to review the law, and if anything in it contravenes the country's constitution or Shariah law, "measures will be taken."

The issue of women's rights is a source of tension between the country's conservative establishment and more liberal members of society. The Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 banned women from appearing in public without a body-covering burqa and a male escort from her family.

Now, millions of girls attend school and many women own businesses. Of 351 parliamentarians, 89 are women.

But in the staunchly conservative country, critics fear those gains could easily be reversed. Fawzia Kufi, a lawmaker who opposed the legislation, said this week that the law undermines all advances for Afghan women in the last seven years.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has criticized the law, praised Karzai's decision to review it.

"The equality of men and women goes to the heart of our value system and our engagement in that country and the our opposition to the Taliban," Harper said in Strasbourg.

Karzai did not mention the controversial article on Saturday but said at a news conference he had studied the law earlier in the day and that "I don't see any problems with it."