International Criminal Court prosecutor requests Taliban arrest warrants over repression of women and girls

The main authoritative of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has requested apprehension warrants for 2 apical Afghan Taliban officials for the repression of women.

Karim Khan said successful a connection helium asked judges to o.k. warrants for the group's ultimate leader, Hibatullah Akhunzada, and the caput of Afghanistan's Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, accusing the men of crimes against humanity for gender-based persecution.

"These applications recognise that Afghan women and girls arsenic good arsenic the LGBT+ assemblage are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban," Mr Khan said.

Since they took backmost power of the state successful 2021, the Taliban person barred women from jobs, astir nationalist spaces and acquisition beyond sixth grade. Last year, Akhundzada banned buildings from having windows looking into places wherever a pistillate mightiness beryllium oregon stand.

Human rights groups applauded the ICC determination against the Taliban leadership.

"Their systematic violations of women and girls' rights, including acquisition bans, and the suppression of those speaking up for women's rights, person accelerated with implicit impunity. With nary justness successful show successful Afghanistan, the warrant requests connection an indispensable pathway to a measurement of accountability," Liz Evenson, planetary justness manager astatine Human Rights Watch, said successful a statement.

It is the archetypal clip successful the court's past that attacks connected the LGBT+ assemblage person been considered a transgression against humanity.

Judges astatine the The Hague-based tribunal approved a petition successful 2022 from the authoritative to reopen the probe into Afghanistan. The probe was shelved aft Kabul said it could grip the investigation.

Mr Khan said helium wanted to reopen the enquiry due to the fact that nether the Taliban, determination was "no longer the imaginable of genuine and effectual home investigations" successful Afghanistan.

However, quality rights groups criticised Mr Khan's determination to absorption connected crimes committed by the Taliban and the Afghan affiliate of the Isis group. He said helium would "deprioritise" different aspects of the investigation, specified arsenic crimes committed by Americans.

Mr Khan's predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, got support successful 2020 to commencement looking astatine offenses allegedly committed by Afghan authorities forces, the Taliban, American troops and U.S. overseas quality operatives dating backmost to 2002.

The determination to look into Americans led to the erstwhile first-term medication of Donald Trump slapping sanctions connected Ms Bensouda, whose word ended successful 2021.

There is nary deadline for judges to regularisation connected a petition for a warrant, but a determination typically takes astir 4 months. It took a pre-trial enclosure 3 weeks to contented an apprehension warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin successful 2023 but six months successful the lawsuit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu past year.

Associated Press