The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, has asked the judges this Thursday to approve two arrest warrants, one against the supreme leader of the TalibanHaibatullah Akhundzada, and another against the president of the Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for gender-based persecution in Afghanistan. Specifically, he claims to have “reasonable grounds” to consider both “criminally responsible” for a crime against humanity throughout the territory of Afghanistan.
According to the prosecutor, since August 15, 2021, Taliban leaders have persecuted Afghan girls and women, as well as people they perceived as “not conforming to their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression”, or “as allies of girls and women”. “This ongoing persecution entails numerous and serious deprivations of the victims’ fundamental rights, contrary to international law, including the right to physical integrity and autonomy, freedom of movement and expression, education, life and family and freedom of assembly,” Khan denounced.
Furthermore, the prosecutor has stressed that the perceived resistance or opposition to the Taliban was, and is, “brutally repressed.” This through the commission of crimes that include “murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, forced disappearance and other inhuman acts.”
These are the first arrest warrants requested by the prosecutor as part of his investigation of serious crimes in Afghanistan, although he assures that “will soon submit more applications for other senior Taliban positions.” Among the evidence that his office has, there is audiovisual material, official decrees, forensic reports, as well as testimonies from experts and witnesses, and statements from the suspects themselves and other representatives of the Taliban.
“These requests recognize that Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQI+ community, face a unprecedented, unacceptable and continuous persecution by the Taliban. Our action indicates that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable. “Afghan survivors, particularly women and girls, deserve to be held accountable in a court of justice,” he warned.
Deterioration of the human rights situation
At the end of November, Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, France, Luxembourg and Mexico expressed their “concern about the serious deterioration of the human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls” and asked the prosecutor to consider the crimes committed by the Taliban. Khan assured them that gender persecution is already included in his investigation and promised to announce results “soon.”
“The Taliban’s interpretation of sharia should not and cannot be used to justify the deprivation of fundamental human rights or the commission of related crimes covered by the Rome Statute (ICC treaty)”, the prosecutor warned this Thursday, waiting for the judges to authorize the arrest warrants against the Taliban leaders.
In 2020, the ICC prosecutor’s office obtained unanimous authorization from judges to begin investigating alleged crimes committed on the territory of Afghanistan since May 1, 2003, as well as crimes linked to the armed conflict and the situation in Afghanistan, which were committed on the territory of other States parties to the ICC since July 2002.
The previous Afghan government challenged the admissibility of the investigation. But on October 31, 2022, after the Taliban took power, the prosecution has taken up the case and “has been conducting an independent, impartial and robust investigation” into crimes in Afghanistan.
However, Khan will only focus his efforts on investigate crimes allegedly committed by the Taliban and the affiliate of the Islamic State group (IS-Khorasan)leaving other aspects in the background, such as the alleged crimes committed by American soldiers.
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