ICC prosecutors seek arrest of Taliban leaders for ‘harassment of Afghan girls and women’

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he will seek an arrest warrant against senior leaders of the Afghan Taliban government for the persecution of women and girls.

Karim Khan said there are reasons to suspect Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity.

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

The ICC investigates and prosecutes those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities refuse to prosecute or prosecute them.

In a statement, Mr Khan said the two men were “criminally responsible for the persecution of Afghan girls and women, as well as people who the Taliban believed did not conform to ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and people perceived by the Taliban as allies. Girls and women”.

Opposition to the Taliban government is “brutally repressed through murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and sexual violence, enforced disappearance and other cruel acts including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other cruel acts”.

The harassment took place from at least August 15, 2021 to the present, throughout Afghanistan, the statement said.

Akhundzada became the Taliban’s top commander in 2016, and is now the 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 was a negotiator on behalf of the Taliban in 2020 discussions with US representatives.

The Taliban government has yet to comment on the ICC statement.

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

“Morality laws” have deprived women of dozens of rights in the country.

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

The Taliban have repeatedly promised to re-admit the school once a number of issues are resolved, including ensuring the curriculum was “Islamic”. This has yet to happen.

Beauty salons have been closed and women are barred from public parks, gyms and baths.

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

in december women were also forbidden to train as midwives and nurseseffectively closing off their last avenue to further education in the country.