ICC prosecutor seeks to arrest Taliban leaders for “persecuting Afghan girls and women”

The top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he will seek arrest warrants against senior leaders of the Taliban government in Afghanistan over the persecution of women and girls.

Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani bore criminal responsibility for gender-based crimes against humanity.

ICC judges will now decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.

The ICC investigates and brings to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities are unable or unwilling to prosecute.

In a statement, Khan said the two men were “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as people the Taliban considered did not conform to their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and people whom the Taliban Taliban perceived as allies. of girls and women”.

Opposition to the Taliban government is “brutally repressed through the commission of crimes that include murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, forced disappearances and other inhumane acts,” he added.

The persecution was committed from at least August 15, 2021 to the present day, throughout Afghanistan, according to the statement.

Akhundzada became the supreme commander of the Taliban in 2016 and is now leader of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In the 1980s he participated in Islamist groups fighting the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan.

Haqqani was a close associate of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and served as a negotiator on behalf of the Taliban during talks with U.S. representatives in 2020.

The Taliban government has not yet commented on the ICC statement.

The Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after a US-led invasion toppled their regime following the 9/11 attacks in New York, but their government has not been formally recognized by any other foreign power.

Since then, “moral laws” have meant that women have lost dozens of rights in the country.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education: around one and a half million have been deliberately deprived of schooling.

The Taliban have repeatedly promised that they would be readmitted to the school once a number of issues were resolved, including ensuring that the curriculum was “Islamic.” This has not happened yet.

Beauty salons have been closed and women are prevented from entering parks, gyms and public bathrooms.

A dress code means they must be fully covered and strict rules have prohibited them from traveling without a male companion or looking a man in the eye unless they are related by blood or marriage.

In December, Women were also prohibited from training as midwives and nurses.effectively closing their last route to higher education in the country.