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A prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is officially seeking arrest warrants against two senior Taliban officials, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
Some shit you should know before you read: The ICC, located in The Hague, is an international tribunal established in 2002 that prosecutes individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so. It operates independently from the United Nations, with member states expected to cooperate in investigations and arrests. One of its most notable convictions was that of Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, who in 2012 was found guilty of using child soldiers, marking the ICC’s first verdict. The court has faced significant criticism for its limited impact, as many nations, including major powers like the United States, China, and Russia, have not provided an enforcement mechanism to the ICC, often leading to its arrest warrants being unenforced. Notably, arrest warrants by the ICC have been issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What’s going on now: In an announcement, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan revealed that his office is seeking arrest warrants against Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s Supreme Leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group’s Chief Justice, for crimes against humanity on gender grounds. Khan described how the Taliban have systematically persecuted Afghan women and girls since reclaiming power in 2021, stripping them of their basic rights to education, employment, and public life.

He accused the Taliban leaders of orchestrating an unprecedented and unconscionable campaign of repression, including bans on secondary and higher education, forced dress codes, restrictions on travel without a male chaperone, and prohibitions on women entering public spaces such as parks and gyms. His office also cited other atrocities, including murder, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and other inhumane acts targeting not only women but also LGBTQ+ individuals and anyone perceived as supporting women’s rights or defying Taliban ideological norms.
Khan said that the Taliban’s actions amount to a clear and deliberate violation of fundamental human rights, including the right to physical integrity, autonomy, education, and freedom of expression and assembly. He argued that these abuses were part of a systematic campaign to erase women and girls from public life in Afghanistan, amounting to persecution on gender grounds.
What happens next: To secure the warrants, ICC judges must now evaluate whether the evidence presented by Khan’s office meets the threshold of “reasonable grounds to believe” that the accused are criminally responsible.