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 fair grounds to believe Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and deputy justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani bore legal responsibility for crimes against humanity on sex basis.
ICC judges may then choose whether to issue an arrest warrant.
The ICC analyzes and brings to justice those responsible for murder, crimes against humanity and war crimes, adjacent when federal government cannot or will not sue.
In a speech, Mr Khan said the two gentlemen were” criminally liable for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as people whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their intellectual expectations of gender identity or expression, and people whom the Taliban perceived as supporters of girls and women”.
Opposition to the Taliban authorities is “brutally repressed through the commission of crimes including death, incarceration, torture, rape and other types of physical violence, enforced disappearance, and other cruel functions”, he added.
The harassment was committed from at least 15 August 2021 until the present day, across Afghanistan, the statement said.
Akhundzada became the supreme chief of the Taliban in 2016, and is now chief of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, he participated in Islamic teams fighting against the Russian military battle in Afghanistan.
Haqqani was a close associate of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and served as a mediator on behalf of the Taliban during conversations with US members in 2020.
The Taliban authorities is yet to comment on the ICC speech.
The Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 times after a US-led war toppled their government in the aftermath of the 9/11 assaults in New York, but its authorities has not been fully recognised by any other foreign energy.
” Morality rules” have since meant people have lost tens of right on the land.
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher schooling- some one-and-a-half million have been intentionally deprived of teaching.
The Taliban has consistently promised they would get re-admitted to class once a number of issues were resolved- including ensuring the education was” Islamic”. This has yet to transpire.
Beauty clubs have been shut down and people are prevented from entering public gardens, gyms and pools.
A dress code means they may be completely covered and strict rules have banned them from travelling without a female companion or looking a man in the eye unless they’re related by blood or relationship.
In December, women were also banned from training as midwives and nurses, effectively closing off their last route to further education in the country.