The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban leaders in Afghanistan on charges of abuses against women and girls.
ICC judges on Tuesday said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhunzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution.
“While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,” the court said in a statement.
The Taliban has “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy, family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said.
“In addition, other persons were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were regarded as inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender,” the court added.
The Taliban was quick to reject the warrants as “baseless rhetoric”, saying that it does not recognise the ICC’s authority and invoking the court’s failure to protect the “hundreds of women and children being killed daily” in Gaza.
“The leadership and officials of the Islamic Emirate have established unparalleled justice in Afghanistan based on the sacred laws of Islamic Sharia,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, said in a statement.
Late in 2022, several Muslim-majority countries – including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – condemned the Taliban’s decision to restrict education for women.
The ICC said on Tuesday that the alleged crimes were committed from August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power after the withdrawal of United States forces, and continued until at least January 20 of this year.
The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought the warrants in January, saying that “Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban”.
Last year, the United Nations accused the Taliban government of barring at least 1.4 million girls from their right to an education during its time in power.
Taking into account the number of girls not going to school before the group came to power, the UN said 80 percent of Afghan school-age girls – a total of 2.5 million – were being denied their right to an education.
Authorities also imposed restrictions on women working for nongovernmental groups and other jobs.
Beauty salons have been closed and women blocked from visiting public parks and gyms as well as travelling long distances without a male chaperone.
A “vice and virtue” law announced a year ago ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be “concealed” outside the home.
The rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) welcomed the ICC warrants on Tuesday.
“The announcement is an important development that gives hope, inside and outside the country, to Afghan women, girls, as well as those persecuted on the basis of gender identity or expression,” Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement.
“This is a crucial step to hold accountable all those allegedly responsible for the gender-based deprivation of fundamental rights to education, to free movement and free expression, to private and family life, to free assembly, and to physical integrity and autonomy.”
For its part, HRW called on the international community to “fully back the ICC in its critical work in Afghanistan and globally, including through concerted efforts to enforce the court’s warrants”.
Last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over war crime charges in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon of war.
But several Western members of the court have refused to commit to enforcing the warrants. Earlier this year, Poland said it would allow Netanyahu to visit the country, and Hungary hosted the Israeli prime minister and withdrew from the Rome Statute that established the ICC.
For its part, the US – which is not a member of the court – imposed sanctions on ICC officials over the prosecution of Netanyahu.
The ICC, 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 member states to carry out its arrest warrants.
