KABUL - President Hamid Karzai is concerned about a death sentence handed down to a journalist in Afghanistan accused of insulting Islam, but he will not intervene until the courts have their final say, his spokesman said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, violence and cold weather were reported to have killed dozens in the impoverished country, where a Taliban insurgency still rages. Among the dead were five civilians killed when a roadside bomb struck a taxi in the south.
The journalist, 23-year-old Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, was sentenced to death on Jan. 22 by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for distributing a report he printed off the Internet to journalism students at Balkh University.
The article asked why under Islam men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands.
The court in Mazar-i-Sharif found that the article humiliated Islam, the faith of the vast majority of people in this deeply conservative country. Members of a clerical council also pushed for Kaambakhsh to be punished.
But there has been an international outcry over Kaambakhsh case, with a number of organizations demanding the case be annulled and the reporter set free.
Kaambakhsh has appealed his conviction, and the case will now go to an appeals court.
"There is a judicial process ongoing," said Humayun Hamidzada, the spokesman for Karzai. "Of course the president is concerned. We are watching the situation very closely."
The government will act only after the courts make their final decision, Hamidzada told a news conference. Any action will be in line with the Afghan constitution, international obligations and respect for human rights, he said.
In southern Afghanistan, a roadside blast hit a police patrol, leaving two officers dead and three others wounded, an official said Tuesday. The patrol was attacked inside Kandahar city late Monday, said Kandahar provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqib. He blamed Taliban militants for the attack.
A separate roadside bomb on Monday hit a taxi in southern Helmand province, killing five civilians, including a woman and two children, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal. Andiwal also accused the Taliban, and said police and NATO forces frequently patrol the road where the bombing took place.
In central Afghanistan, bitter cold and heavy snow left 37 people dead, authorities said. The victims, including 20 children, died in remote areas of Ghazni province in the last 24 hours, Gov. Faizullah Faizan said.
Faizan said air drops of food and other supplies were needed in the areas affected by snow and freezing weather after roads were blocked off and people were unable to reach health centers and food distribution points.
Afghans in remote villages are typically able to heat their mud-brick homes only by burning animal dung or wood, if the family can afford it.
