| GEO World | | Karzai says will change Shi'a law, if unconstitutional | Updated at: 1431 PST, Wednesday, April 08, 2009
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised on Wednesday to make changes to a new law for Shi'ite Muslims, if any part is found to violate the constitution, after provisions on women's rights caused an international uproar.
Karzai said he had met the justice minister and the country's most senior religious leaders to discuss the law, which has already been passed by parliament and signed by Karzai but has not yet come into effect. The law is meant to legalise minority Shi'ite family law, which is different than that for the majority Sunni population.
But it has provoked an outcry among Afghanistan's Western allies concerned about its potential impact on women's rights in the former Taliban state. U.S. President Barack Obama has called the law "abhorrent."
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