The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for two Taliban leaders on charges of persecuting women and girls since seizing power nearly four years ago.
The court said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhunzada and the chief justice of the Taliban, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, had committed the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds against girls and women.
The warrants also accuse the leaders of persecuting "other persons nonconforming with the Taliban's policy on gender, gender identity or expression; and on political grounds against persons perceived as 'allies of girls and women'".
Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, it has clamped down on women's rights, banning women from public places and girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade.
It is the first time judges of the ICC have issued a warrant on charges of gender persecution.
"While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms," the court said.
It said the Taliban had "severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion".
The full warrants and details on the specific incidents they are based on remained under seal to protect witnesses and victims, the ICC said.
The ICC's prosecution office called the decision to issue warrants "an important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls".
It added that the judges' ruling "also recognises the rights and lived experiences of persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, such as members of the LGBTQI+ community, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women".
The court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought the warrants in January, saying that they recognised that "Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban".
The Taliban condemned the warrants as an example of hostility towards Islam.
"We neither recognise anything by the name of an international court nor do we consider ourselves bound by it," the Taliban government's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a statement.
The warrants came just hours after the United Nations adopted a resolution that called on the Taliban to reverse their worsening oppression of women and girls and eliminate all terrorist organisations.
Calls for nations to enforce warrants
NGOs hailed the warrants and called on the international community to back the ICC's work in Afghanistan.
Human Rights Watch International justice director Liz Evenson said in a statement that nations should make concerted efforts to enforce the court's warrants.
"Senior Taliban leaders are now wanted men for their alleged persecution of women, girls, and gender-nonconforming people," she said.
ICC judges approved a request in 2022 from the prosecutor to reopen an investigation into Afghanistan.
The probe had been shelved after Kabul said it could handle the investigation, but Mr Khan said he wanted to reopen the inquiry because, under the Taliban, there was "no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations" in Afghanistan.
The ICC has been under increased criticism from non-member states such as the United States, Israel and Russia.
Last year, the court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023 on suspicion of deporting children from Ukraine.
Neither Russia nor Israel is a member of the court and both deny the accusations and reject ICC jurisdiction.
Last week, Russia became the first country to formally recognise the Taliban's government.
AP/Reuters
