The Worldwide Prison Court docket On Tuesday issued arrest warrants for 2 senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes towards humanity for systematically persecuting girls, ladies, and others who defied the group’s strict gender insurance policies. The warrants named Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s Supreme Chief, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the regime’s Chief Justice.In line with a press release from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber II, there are “affordable grounds to consider” that each males have been accountable for ordering, inducing, or soliciting crimes of persecution on gender and political grounds. These crimes are alleged to have taken place throughout Afghanistan from 15 August 2021—when the Taliban seized energy by way of at the least 20 January 2025.“Whereas the Taliban have imposed sure guidelines and prohibitions on the inhabitants as an entire, they’ve particularly focused women and girls by motive of their gender, depriving them of basic rights and freedoms,” the Chamber mentioned.The ICC detailed a broad and ongoing sample of repression, stating that the Taliban had “severely disadvantaged, by way of decrees and edicts, women and girls of the rights to training, privateness and household life and the freedoms of motion, expression, thought, conscience and faith.” The court docket additionally highlighted abuses towards these perceived to be “allies of women and girls,” in addition to people whose gender identification or sexual expression diverged from Taliban norms.The judges mentioned that gender persecution underneath Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute consists of not solely direct violence but in addition “systemic and institutionalised types of hurt,” such because the enforcement of discriminatory societal norms. These, they concluded, have resulted in “severe and systemic violations of basic rights” in Afghanistan.Though the arrest warrants stay underneath seal to guard victims and witnesses, the Court docket mentioned it was within the pursuits of justice to publicly verify their existence. The judges famous that public consciousness “might contribute to the prevention of the additional fee of those crimes.”
