There are grounds to believe that crimes against humanity are being committed in Afghanistan, Karim Khan has said
International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for arrest warrants for two top Taliban officials, who have allegedly violated women’s rights in Afghanistan.
There are grounds to believe that Taliban’s Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Afghanistan’s Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds,” Khan said in a statement on Thursday.
Women, girls and members of the LGBTQ community have been deprived of their “right to physical integrity and autonomy, to free movement and free expression, to education, to private and family life, and to free assembly” since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, he said.
Any opposition to the new authorities is “brutally repressed through the commission of crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts.”
“The Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia should not, and may not be used to justify the deprivation of fundamental human rights,” the Hague-based court’s prosecutor stated.
ICC judges will now decide whether Akhundzada and Haqqani should be detained. According to the prosecutor, if the warrants are issued, “all efforts to arrest the individuals” will be made by his office.
Khan said he will “soon” apply for arrest warrants for other high-ranking Taliban officials, investigations into the Afghanistan situation continue.
The Taliban government has not yet officially commented on the statement by the ICC.
Since deposing the US-backed Afghan government more than three years ago, the Taliban has imposed dozens of restrictions on women, who are now required to cover all parts of their bodies in public and are prohibited from working with men, studying at universities and schools after sixth grade, traveling alone, and talking loudly in public places, including with other females.
