diff --git a/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Chains.pm b/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Chains.pm
index 296432111..4af83cf85 100644
--- a/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Chains.pm
+++ b/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Chains.pm
@@ -264,7 +264,6 @@ my $chainseq;
 sub process_comment() {
     if ( $capabilities{COMMENTS} ) {
 	( $comment = $line ) =~ s/^\s*COMMENT\s*//;
-	fatal_error "Invalid COMMENT line" if length $line >= 2 && substr( $line, -1) eq '\\';
     } else {
 	warning_message "COMMENT ignored -- requires comment support in iptables/Netfilter";
     }
diff --git a/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Config.pm b/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Config.pm
index 84a65cb27..c7dd63918 100644
--- a/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Config.pm
+++ b/Shorewall-perl/Shorewall/Config.pm
@@ -310,6 +310,7 @@ sub split_line( $$$ ) {
     my ( $mincolumns, $maxcolumns, $description ) = @_;
 
     fatal_error "Shorewall Configuration file entries may not contain double quotes" if $line =~ /"/;
+    fatal_error "Shorewall Configuration file entries may not contain backslash characters" if $line =~ /\\/;
 
     my @line = split /\s+/, $line;