ICC issues warrant for Taliban's supreme leader for persecution of women

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

ICC issues warrant for Taliban’s supreme leader for persecution of women

Rights activists hail move to arrest Haibatullah Akhundzada and Afghan chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanity

Kaamil Ahmed and Zahra Joya
Tue 8 Jul 2025 18.23 BST
Last modified on Tue 8 Jul 2025 21.40 BST

The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for the persecution of women and girls.

In a statement, the ICC said on Tuesday there were “reasonable grounds to believe” the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and Afghanistan’s chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, had ordered policies that deprived women and girls of “education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion”.

Afghan human rights activists have called for the Taliban’s system of depriving women and girls of rights and freedoms and enforcing segregation to be recognised as gender apartheid.

Tahera Nasiri, an Afghan women’s rights activist now living in Canada, said the arrest warrant was an acknowledgment of the abuses Afghan women faced. “For four years, the Taliban have told us to stay silent, stay at home, cover our faces, give up our education, our voices and our dreams. Now, an international court is saying:

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jul/08/international-criminal-court-icc-arrest-warrants-taliban-supreme-leader-persecution-women