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The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor said on Thursday he was seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity.
Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”.
Khan said Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQI+ community, were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban”.
He added: “Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable.”
After sweeping back to power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities pledged a softer rule than their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001. But they quickly imposed restrictions on women and girls that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.
Edicts in line with their interpretation of Islamic law handed down by Akhundzada, who rules by decree from the movement’s birthplace in southern Kandahar, have squeezed women and girls from public life.
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.
More details soon …
