Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan.
The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II cited reasonable grounds for believing supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani were guilty of “ordering, inducing or soliciting the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”
The warrants – the first ever on charges of gender persecution – are being hailed as an “important vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan women and girls”.
