Afghan leader orders review of Shi'ite law

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered a review of a new law for Afghanistan's Shi'ite minority after Western nations raised concerns over its impact on women's rights, Western officials said on Saturday.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he had voiced grave concern over the Shi'ite Personal Status Law in a phone call to Karzai on Saturday and had "demanded assurances" that the law would not infringe women's rights.

"He (Karzai) has promised there will be a statement made by his Justice Department tomorrow and he has promised that, if necessary, this will return to the Afghan parliament rather than being enacted in practice," Brown told a news conference.

He was speaking at a NATO summit at which Britain and other countries agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan to step up security during August presidential elections.

"People will not accept that British soldiers are working in Afghanistan to make Afghanistan safe if the rights of women are not being properly upheld in the country," Brown said.

A British official said Karzai had told Brown he had asked Afghanistan's Justice Ministry to look at every aspect of the law, consult with the Shi'a community and if necessary bring a revised draft back to parliament.

Germany said its foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, had talked to his Afghan counterpart Rangeen Dadfar Spanta by phone on Saturday and expressed concern over the planned law.

Spanta told him that Karzai had stopped the publication of the law and started a legal review of it, the German Foreign Ministry said in Berlin.

Shi'ite Muslims account for some 15 percent of mainly Sunni Muslim Afghanistan.

The United States, NATO, Canada and the United Nations have spoken out against the law, saying it legalizes marital rape.

Karzai said on Saturday such criticisms were based on a wrong translation or misinterpretation of the law, which has not yet come into force.

He said a copy of the law he had seen did not reflect the criticisms and concerns of Afghanistan's Western backers.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the BBC on Friday the law might make it harder for member states to send more troops to battle Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

"We are there to defend universal values and when I see ... a law threatening to come into effect which fundamentally violates women's rights and human rights, that worries me," he said.

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin, Avril Ormsby and Golnar Motevalli)

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Timothy Heritage)