By Stephanie van den Berg
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Thursday he had sought arrest warrants for Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, including supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, charging them with crimes against humanity for widespread discrimination against women and girls.
A statement issued by Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s office said evidence collected as part of the investigations provided reasonable grounds to believe that Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, who has served as chief justice since 2021, “bear criminal responsibility for “the crime against humanity of gender-based persecution.”
They are “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as people the Taliban viewed as not conforming to their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and people the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women,” the statement says. .
The persecution has taken place since at least August 15, 2021 until today, throughout Afghanistan and continues, the prosecutor said.
The Afghanistan investigation is one of the longest conducted by ICC prosecutors and has been plagued by legal and practical delays. The initial preliminary examination began in 2007 and it was not until 2022 that a full-scale investigation began.
Since Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban returned to power in 2021, they have clamped down on women’s rights, including limits on education, work, and general independence in daily life.