ICC prosecutor seeks arrest of Taliban leaders for 'persecuting Afghan girls and women'

Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada - seen here on a poster in Kabul - has been accused of crimes against humanity on gender grounds

The top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he will seek arrest warrants against senior leaders of the Taliban government in Afghanistan over the persecution of women and girls.

Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani bore criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity on gender grounds.

ICC judges will now decide whether to issue the warrants.

The Taliban said it strongly condemned the accusations as "baseless" and politically motivated, accusing the court of "double standards".

The ICC investigates and brings to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.

In a statement, Mr Khan said the two men were "criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women".

Opposition to the Taliban government is "brutally repressed through the commission of crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts", he added.

The persecution was committed from at least 15 August 2021 until the present day, across Afghanistan, the statement said.

But the Taliban's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded with a statement saying the court had turned a blind eye to what it described as "numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by foreign forces and their local allies", referring to US-led forces present in the country before 2021.

"It is regrettable that such unfounded claims are being made against the honorable leaders of the Islamic Emirate at a time when peace has finally been restored in Afghanistan," it said.

"The Afghan people, after years of suffering, have only recently begun to experience relief from the chaos of private prisons, abductions, warlords and other inhumane practices."

Rights group Amnesty International welcomed the ICC move.

In a statement, Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said the announcement "gives hope, inside and outside the country to Afghan women, girls, as well as those persecuted on the basis of gender identity or expression".

But Ms Callamard also called on the ICC prosecutor to "reconsider his 2021 decision to deprioritise investigations" into alleged war crimes by international forces and the former government security apparatus, which could give the impression of a selective approach to international justice.

Akhundzada became the supreme commander of the Taliban in 2016, and is now leader of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, he participated in Islamist groups fighting against the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan.

Haqqani was a close associate of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and served as a negotiator on behalf of the Taliban during discussions with US representatives in 2020.

The ICC prosecutor's office told the BBC that issues slowed down the pace of the investigation, including "the lack of cooperation" from the Taliban authorities.

"Due to fear, individuals with important information for the investigation are frequently unwilling to come forward," the office added.

Nader Nadery, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center who participated in peace talks between the previous Afghan government and the Taliban, said that many Afghan women had been waiting for this moment.

"While it might not immediately change things, it sends a strong message that there won't be impunity," he told the BBC.

"It builds hope for many of those activists and Afghan women on the ground that probably there is a way forward and keeping that hope alive, I believe, is a major contribution immediately."

The Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after a US-led invasion toppled their regime in the fallout of the 9/11 attacks in New York, but its government has not been formally recognised by any other foreign power.

"Morality laws" have since meant women have lost dozens of rights in the country.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education - some one-and-a-half million have been deliberately deprived of schooling.

The Taliban has repeatedly promised they would be re-admitted to school once a number of issues were resolved - including ensuring the curriculum was "Islamic". This has yet to happen.

Beauty salons have been shut down and women are prevented from entering public parks, gyms and baths.

A dress code means they must be fully covered and strict rules have banned them from travelling without a male chaperone or looking a man in the eye unless they're related by blood or marriage.

In December, women were also banned from training as midwives and nurses, effectively closing off their last route to further education in the country.