ICC prosecutor seeks arrest of Taliban leaders for ‘persecuting Afghan girls and women’

The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said that he will request arrest warrants for the senior leaders of the Taliban government in Afghanistan for abusing women and girls.

Karim Khan said there are good reasons to suspect that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani are guilty of gender crimes.

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

The ICC investigates and brings to justice those guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.

In his statement, Mr Khan said the two men “were the perpetrators of violence against Afghan girls and women, as well as people who the Taliban saw as not conforming to their expectations of gender identity, and people who the Taliban saw as allies. girls and women”.

Opposition to the Taliban government was “brutally repressed due to crimes of killing, arrests, torture, rape and other forms of violence, forced disappearances, and other atrocities”, he added.

The persecution took place from August 15, 2021 to today, all over Afghanistan, he said.

Akhundzada became the Taliban’s top commander in 2016, and is now the head of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, he took part in Islamist groups fighting the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Haqqani was a close associate of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and acted as a negotiator on behalf of the Taliban in talks with the US delegation in 2020.

The Taliban government has not commented on the ICC’s allegations.

The Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after a US-led invasion toppled their regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in New York, but their government is not officially recognized by other countries.

“Morality laws” have meant that women have lost many of their rights in this country.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education – approximately one and a half million are deliberately excluded from education.

The Taliban have repeatedly promised that they will be allowed back into schools once a number of issues are resolved – including ensuring that education is “Islamic”. This has not happened yet.

Beauty centers are closed and women are banned from parks, gyms and swimming pools.

The dress code means that they must be fully covered and strict rules prohibit them from walking without a male escort or making eye contact with a man unless they are related or family members.

In December, women were also prohibited from training as midwives and nursesclosing their last route to higher education in the country.