Afghanistan: Afghan president responds to concerns over law --- KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered changes to a draft of new criminal legislation in response to an international outcry warning it would severely limit justice for victims of domestic abuse, his spokesman said Monday. -- Afghanistan’s parliament had passed a new criminal procedure code that would ban relatives from testifying against alleged abusers. While the legislation awaited signature from Karzai, human rights organizations and several of Afghanistan’s Western allies — including the U.S. and European Union — voiced strong concerns it would effectively curb prosecutions involving violence against women, where relatives are often the only witnesses.-- Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said the president was “well aware” of the critiques and reports and decided at a Cabinet meeting Monday that the legislation must be changed. -- “We are not going to allow any such law to come into force unless the necessary amendments are made,” Faizi said, suggesting that there may have been issues with how the area in question — Article 26 — was translated into English. -- While the Ministry of Justice will decide on how to amend the text, Faizi stressed the resulting legislation will be clear. -- “This law will not bar any relative or any family member to testify against each other or another member of family,” he told the Associated Press. “It will be up to them. They will have the freedom.” --- There are fears that many of those freedoms may shrink as foreign forces depart by the end of this year and much of the international aid and assistance they brought to Afghanistan goes with them.