‘Violations of fundamental rights’: ICC cracks down on Taliban; Supreme Leader, Chief Justice named

The International Criminal Court On Tuesday issued arrest warrants for 2 senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes in opposition to humanity for systematically persecuting girls, women, and others who defied the group’s strict gender insurance policies. The warrants named Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s Supreme Leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the regime’s Chief Justice.According to a press release from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber II, there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that each males have been answerable for ordering, inducing, or soliciting crimes of persecution on gender and political grounds. These crimes are alleged to have taken place throughout Afghanistan from 15 August 2021—when the Taliban seized energy via not less than 20 January 2025.“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 Chamber stated.The ICC detailed a broad and ongoing sample of repression, stating that 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 courtroom additionally highlighted abuses in opposition to these perceived to be “allies of girls and women,” in addition to people whose gender identification or sexual expression diverged from Taliban norms.The judges stated that gender persecution underneath Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute contains not solely direct violence but in addition “systemic and institutionalised forms of harm,” such because the enforcement of discriminatory societal norms. These, they concluded, have resulted in “serious and systemic violations of fundamental rights” in Afghanistan.Although the arrest warrants stay underneath seal to guard victims and witnesses, the Court stated it was within the pursuits of justice to publicly affirm their existence. The judges famous that public consciousness “may contribute to the prevention of the further commission of these crimes.”