Useful information
Prime News delivers timely, accurate news and insights on global events, politics, business, and technology
The chief prosecutor of the United Nations international criminal court Announced on Thursday who was seeking arrest warrants for the two highest leaders of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban regime for crimes against humanity on the group Treatment of women and girls.
Prosecutor Karim Khan said that after a thorough investigation and review of evidence, his office found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and the group’s president, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, bear “criminal responsibility.” for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds, “under the treaty that founded the ICC, known as the Rome Statute.
Khan said his office had concluded that both men are “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as people whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming to their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and people whom “The Taliban perceived them as allies of the allies of girls and women.”
The statement said the alleged crimes were committed between “at least” the Taliban’s regaining control over Afghanistan in August 2021 “until the present,” across the country.
“This continued persecution involves numerous severe deprivations of the victims’ fundamental rights, contrary to international law, including the right to physical integrity and autonomy, to free movement and free expression, to education, to private life and familiar, and to the Free Assembly”, “,”. Khan said.
In Published statement On social media on Friday, the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the ICC bodies’ request for orders as a measure “devoid of legal basis, duplicative in nature and politically motivated.” Leaders of the Islamic Emirate.”
From regain control of AfghanistanThe Taliban have imposed a long list of harsh laws targeting women and girls. The measures have seen women driven from public life and condemnation drawn from much of the international community, including accusations of gender apartheid.
Under the pretext of Islamic sharia law, the measures have deprived girls and women of formal education from the age of 12, the right to visit public parks or travel alone, or even meet with a doctor unless accompanied of a male chaperone.
Last month, the Taliban imposed a ban on women training to become midwives and nurses, another devastating blow in a country that already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. According to World Bank data, 620 women die per 100,000 live births in Afghanistan due to pregnancy-related complications.
Akhundzada recently ordered that windows in homes overlooking spaces used by women, such as kitchens, patios or water wells, be covered.
Elizabeth Evenson, director of the international justice program at the
Human Rights Watch said in a statement Thursday that it hoped the ICC’s request for warrants against high-ranking Taliban figures would put the “systematic exclusion of women and girls from public life and the guidance of LGBT people in the radar of the international community.
Evenson said the Taliban’s gender repression had “accelerated with complete impunity” since the summer of 2021, and that “with no justice in sight in Afghanistan, the order’s requests offer an essential avenue to a measure of accountability.” .
He also called on the ICC prosecutor to review his decision “to drop the investigation into abuses by former Afghan government forces and US personnel” who were based in the country for two decades. The investigation into the actions of American troops was Launched by Khan’s predecessor.
Khan said the request for international arrest warrants highlights the ICC’s commitment to holding those responsible for gender-based crimes accountable, with more arrests and warrants for other senior Taliban members expected to follow. as the court’s investigation into the situation in Afghanistan continues.
“International Criminal Court judges will now determine whether these arrest warrant applications establish reasonable grounds to believe that the named individuals committed the alleged crimes. If the judges issue the warrants, my office will work closely with the registrar in all efforts to arrest people,” Khan said, adding that “as in all situations, I request states to fully cooperate with the court and assist it in enforcing any court order.”
While the ICC has the power to issue arrest warrants, and has done so recently both for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuThe country’s former defense chief and a senior Hamas leader – has no means of independently enforcing such orders.
It is due to the individual countries that are signatories to the court’s founding treaty. to decide whether to take people sought into custody on ICC arrest warrants, when they enter the territories of those countries.
The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and is therefore not required to detain anyone with an ICC warrant.
Even if the ICC issues initiation orders for Akhundzada or other Taliban leaders, it is highly unlikely that they will attempt to visit any country where they could risk it. Virtually everyone has refused to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan in the wake of their reassertion of control over the country.
Khan himself has faced accusations that he tried for more than a year to force a female assistant into a sexual relationship and groped her against her will. He has categorically denied the allegations, saying there was “no truth to the suggestions of misconduct.” ICC officials have said the claims may have been made as part of an Israeli intelligence smear campaign.
