The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said that he was seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity.
Karim Khan said that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Taliban’s Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the group’s Supreme Court’s chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”.
Khan said that Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQ community, were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban”.
“Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable,” added Khan.
ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application before deciding whether to issue an arrest warrant — a process that could take weeks or even months.
These requests for warrants of arrest are based on diverse evidence, including expert and witness testimonies, official decrees, forensic reports, statements by the suspects themselves and other Taliban representatives, and audio-visual material, the prosecutor said.
Khan warned he would soon be seeking additional applications for other Taliban officials. The prosecutor noted other crimes against humanity were being committed as well as persecution.
“Perceived resistance or opposition to the Taliban was, and is, brutally repressed through the commission of crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts,” he said.
After sweeping back to power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities pledged a softer rule than their first stint in power from 1996-2001. However, they quickly imposed restrictions on women and girls that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”. The hardline Islamist group has banned women from going to university, closed secondary schools and beauty salons, and stopped women from working at NGOs, including at the United Nations.
Khan added, “My Office further submits that the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia should not, and may not be used to justify the deprivation of fundamental human rights or the related commission of Rome Statute crimes.”
The court, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has no police force of its own and relies on its 125 member states to carry out its arrest warrants — with mixed results.
In theory this means that anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) welcomed the arrest warrants on Thursday, calling them “a reminder that justice can prevail.”