Mohammad Sakhi Rezaie
Karim Khan’s application for arrest warrants for two senior Taliban officials: Haibbatullah Akhundzada the Supreme Leader of the Taliban and Abdul Hakim Haqqani the Supreme Court Chief Justice is an historic step towards addressing the “unacceptable” systematic repression of Afghan women, girls and minority groups, and all people of Afghanistan.
These two senior leaders of the Taliban are accused of crimes against humanity on the grounds of gender-based persecution under the Rome Statue of the court. Based on this, every State signatory should exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes.
After the Taliban group retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, the group implemented a series of oppressive measures that have systematically stripped women of their rights, including denying them from employment, public spaces and education beyond the age of 12.
Why ICC’s Request Is A ‘Major Step Toward Justice’
According to the Justice experts, it is a significant milestone in the fight for justice and accountability. These experts believe the ICC’s application highlights the severity of the Taliban’s systematic repression and reinforces the global commitment to holding perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable. This move also could increase pressure on Taliban both internally and internationally.
Afghan women and girls have been one of the first groups that have been systematically targeted by Taliban’s Supreme Leader verdicts. As a result, they have been barred from secondary and higher education, work and presence in the public spaces.
Based on their first round of government on Afghanistan, Taliban never thought women would emerge as the most challenging group against the atrocity policies of the Taliban. But Afghan women were the first group who poured to the streets and marched protests against the Taliban’s discriminatory policies on women and other social groups of the country. Since taking power in August 2021, Taliban have arrested, imprisoned, and tortured, and sexually abused women, but they have not surrendered to the harsh repression policies of the Taliban.
Afghan women’s rights activists consider this step by the ICC as a significant validation of years of tireless efforts by Afghan civil society and human rights advocates, who have risked their lives to document the Taliban’s crimes. As a result, this step by ICC, highlights the critical importance of their work and serves as a powerful reminder that their advocacy has opened its way on the international stage.
Afghan women hope, the case could strengthen international frameworks on gender-based crimes, potentially influencing prosecution of other Taliban senior leaders who support and are involved in suppressing Afghan women in the country.
Some Afghan and international legal experts and advocates argue that “persecution” does not fully capture the scope of the Taliban systematic repression. Many of Afghan women’s rights activists have pushed for the recognition of gender apartheid as a distinct crime under the international law, but the ICC currently has no legal framework to prosecute it.
The Challenges and Risks Ahead
The ICC’s prosecutor request for arresting Taliban leaders, will face certain backlash by Taliban and lack of will to implementation by the signatory States. These include:
1) The Taliban are unlikely to accept any arrest warrants quietly and may retaliate by imposing even harsher restrictions on Afghan women and girls, and they may even tighten their control, using women as targets to show their defiance.
2) Countries that have some level of contact or trade with the Taliban — may not step up and apply stronger pressure on the group for their national interests.
Consequences
This move of ICC will have national and international consequences for the Taliban:
It sends a clear message that the plight of Afghan women and the broader atrocities committed by the Taliban have not been ignored.
It revives hope in the pursuit of justice, demonstrating that the global community acknowledges the suffering and remains committed to holding perpetrators accountable, no matter how long it takes.
It will have longer-term impacts by delegitimizing the Taliban’s current leadership and slowing the regime’s path toward international recognition.
It will increase economic pressures on Taliban by further limiting financial and trade relations between the Taliban and the world. As a result, it will decrease the age of the Taliban regime.
The harsh religious ideology of the Taliban has deepened the gap between the Taliban and the people of Afghanistan. Issuing the arrest warrant, will motivate the people to resists against the Taliban and it will lead to huge protests and civil disobedience across the country. And it may also deepen the Taliban internal rifts.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The application for arrest warrants by ICC for the Taliban’s leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and its chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for being “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women” is a milestone step toward making accountable the Taliban regime. The people of Afghanistan, especially women’s rights activists, expected such move by ICC when the Taliban group initiated its gender based discriminatory polices after retaking power in August 2021.
This will have national and international consequence for the Taliban, ranging from decreasing the opportunities of the Taliban regime to be recognized by international community to increasing the civil disobedience and even armed resistance the against the group.
Afghan women’s rights activists demand the order does not remain on the paper and as the ICC relies on its member states to execute arrests, every State signatory should exercise its criminal jurisdiction over Haibatullah Akhundzada, and its chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, and other Senior Taliban leaders responsible for international crimes.
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