ICC Prosecutor Wants Arrest Of Taliban Leader For Persecuting Afghan Women And Girls

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has sought arrest warrants for the top leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban government and the country’s chief justice over an “unprecedented” persecution of Afghan women and girls.

Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement that Taliban leader Sheikh Haibatullah Akundzada and the head of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, had committed crimes against humanity, including “gender-based persecution.”

“Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQI+ community, are being subjected to unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban,” the statement said.

In the year After US troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban regained power, the fundamentalist regime enacted austerity and welfare laws that completely removed women from public life and many private activities.

The provisions presented as Muslim religious laws excluded women from work and almost all public places. In the year By 2023, the Taliban had closed down all beauty salons – one of the few public places left in the country where women could congregate outside. Afghanistan bans girls from high school and women from university – the only country.

A UN reporter has described the extremist regime as “gender apartheid”.

Many women have fled the country, while others are looking for a way to escape the oppressed lifestyle.

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

Last year, Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands took the Taliban to the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, accusing them of “serious and systematic” violations of the UN ban on Afghanistan. Types of discrimination against women.

Other countries have joined the case, which is expected to wind its way through the World Court and lead to public hearings and possibly court orders.

While the Taliban has ignored international pressure to reverse its radicalization of women, the country’s leaders hope the group will be given a reprieve as they seek to normalize diplomatic ties or seek international aid. They say the International Court of Justice cases are important to keep the plight of Afghan women on the agenda.

“Afghan women and girls finally have an opportunity to seek justice for the atrocities they have suffered since the Taliban took over,” said Benaif Nowroje, president of the Open Society Foundations, an independent group working for justice, democratic governance and human rights. “Without the ICC and other international courts, Afghan women and girls will have nowhere else to hold the Taliban accountable.”

Mr Khan applied for bail as part of a wider investigation into alleged Taliban crimes. In a brief statement, the prosecutor said his office would seek additional warrants against other senior Taliban officials for the widespread attacks on the Afghan civilian population.

A three-judge panel issued an ICC arrest warrant, a process that could take months. Lawyers familiar with the court said the warrants could be issued quickly because the Taliban regime’s discriminatory decrees against Afghan women are in violation of international law.

The leader of the Taliban is not known to have left the country, so if the warrant is issued, the chances of his execution are slim.

In a statement, Mr. Khan said the Taliban’s opposition had been brutally repressed by “killings, detentions, torture, rape and other crimes including sexual violence, forced disappearances and other inhumane acts”. The repression and violence has drawn comparisons with the crimes committed by the Taliban during their previous reign.

After seizing the capital Kabul in 1996, the ultraconservative militants rose to prominence and were invaded in 2001 by US-led international forces tracking down al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. . The bombing campaign has forced the Taliban to retreat.

The ICC’s investigation into crimes committed in Afghanistan began in 2011. It was in 2007 and has been on the back burner for a long time. They include allegations of misconduct by US troops, including extrajudicial killings and torture.

But Mr. Khan in 2010 After taking office in 2021, he surprised many when he announced that he would “prioritize” investigations into American workers. He said it depends on his decision to use limited resources efficiently. That basically covered the American part of the question.