The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants Tuesday for the Taliban’s supreme leader and the top of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court on charges of persecuting women and girls since seizing power nearly 4 years ago.
The warrants also accuse the leaders of persecuting “other individuals non-conforming with the Taliban’s policy on gender, gender identity or expression; and on political grounds against individuals perceived as ‘allies of women and girls.’”
The warrants were issued against Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhunzada and the top of the Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani.
The court said in a press release that the Taliban have “severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, women and girls of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion. As well as, other individuals were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were thought to be inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender.”
The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought the warrants in January, saying that they recognized that “Afghan women and girls in addition to the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban.”
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Global advocacy group Human Rights Watch welcomed the choice.
“Senior Taliban leaders at the moment are wanted men for his or her alleged persecution of girls, girls, and gender non-conforming people. The international community should fully back the ICC in its critical work in Afghanistan and globally, including through concerted efforts to implement the court’s warrants,” Liz Evenson, the group’s international justice director, said in a press release.
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