"We're obviously disturbed about it. We think that everyone should be able to express their views," said spokeswoman Dana Perino. "These reports are very disturbing."

A Kabul appeal court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of 24-year-old Perwiz Kambakhsh, who has spent a year in prison on charges of "insulting Islam", but reduced his sentence from the death penalty.

Citing a reported Taliban fighter attack on a bus this week, in which as many as 30 people may have been killed, Perino added: "I think that Afghanistan has a long way to go. They do have a fragile democracy."

U.S. President George W. Bush was to discuss the situation in the strife-torn country later in the day with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in talks at the White House, she said.

Reporters Without Borders, an international media rights watchdog, said it was outraged by the court's decision, which it called "shameful."

The reporter was not given a lawyer at his first trial in the northern province of Balkh in January at which he was sentenced to death after a hearing that lasted minutes.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said the overturning of the death sentence was an "encouraging step towards justice" but it demanded a full withdrawal of all charges. The group again urged President Hamid Karzai to intervene, saying he had already pledged to do so.

The case, and another in which a former reporter was last month sentenced to 20 years in jail for publishing a translation of the Koran alleged to contain errors, showed malfunctions in the application of a person's right to a fair trial, it said.