ICC Prosecutor wants Taliban leader arrested for harassing Afghan women and girls

The top leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban government and the country’s chief justice have sought an arrest warrant for the “unprecedented” persecution of Afghan women and girls, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said Thursday.

Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement that the leader of the Taliban, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzadeh, and the head of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, committed a crime against humanity: “persecution on the basis of gender”.

“Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQI+ community, are facing unprecedented, unfair and ongoing persecution by the Taliban,” the statement said.

After U.S. troops left Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban regained power, fundamentalist rulers enacted ever-tightening codes of vice and virtue laws that completely shut women out of public life and many private activities.

The edicts, presented as Muslim religious rules, excluded women from the workplace and almost all public places. In 2023 The Taliban closed all beauty salons — one of the few public places in the country where women can gather outside the home. Afghanistan has also banned girls from secondary school and women from university – the only country to do so.

The United Nations rapporteur called the extreme regime “gender apartheid.”

Many women have fled the country, while others are looking for ways to escape their limited lifestyle.

The prosecutor’s move is the first legal appeal by the Hague-based court to include the plight of LGBTQI+ groups in a discrimination complaint. But this is not the first international legal attempt to pressure the Taliban their impact on the lives of Afghan women.

Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands last year He handed over the Taliban to the International Court of Justiceappealed to the United Nations’ highest court, condemning them for “gross and systematic” violations of the UN convention, ratified by Afghanistan, which prohibits all forms of discrimination against women.

Other countries have since joined the World Court case, which is expected to lead to public hearings and possibly court rulings.

While the Taliban have defied international pressure to change their extremist treatment of women, activists hope the group will compromise as the country’s leaders. attempts to normalize diplomatic relations or seek international assistance. They say international court cases are important to keep the plight of Afghan women on the agenda.

“Afghan women and girls finally have a chance to seek justice for the brutality they have endured since the Taliban took over,” said Binaifer Nowrojee, president of the Open Society Foundations, an independent group working for justice, democratic governance and human rights. “Without the ICC and other international tribunals, Afghan women and girls would have no other place to hold the Taliban accountable.”

Mr Khan’s warrant request is part of his wider investigation into Taliban crimes. The prosecutor said in his briefing that his office will seek additional warrants for other high-ranking Taliban officials for wider attacks against Afghan civilians.

A three-judge panel issues an ICC arrest warrant, a process that can take months. Lawyers familiar with the court said the warrants could emerge sooner because the decrees, which discriminate against Afghan women in violation of international law, were clearly issued by Taliban rulers.

The Taliban leader is not known to have left the country, so there is little chance of their execution if warrants are issued.

In a statement, Mr Khan said opposition to the Taliban was being “savagely repressed” through “crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearances and other inhumane acts”. He compared the oppression and violence to the crimes committed by the Taliban when they were in power.

The ultra-conservative militants were recognized in 1996 after the invading Soviet troops retreated and captured the capital, Kabul. . The bombing campaign caused the Taliban to retreat.

The ICC’s investigations into crimes committed in Afghanistan first began in 2007 and have been on the back burner for a long time. They include allegations of wrongdoing by the US military, including extrajudicial killings and torture.

But Mr. Khan surprised many when he announced immediately after taking office in 2021 that he would “deprioritize” the investigation into US personnel. He said that his decision was based on the need to efficiently use limited resources. That essentially shut down the US component of the investigation.