The Worldwide Legal Courtroom on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for 2 prime Taliban officers accused of focusing on LGBTQ individuals, girls, and others who defy the group’s strict gender norms.
The warrants are for Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme chief, and Afghanistan Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani.
“Based mostly on proof introduced by the Workplace (of the Prosecutor), the judges discovered that there are affordable grounds to imagine that they’ve dedicated — by ordering, inducing, or soliciting — the crime towards humanity of persecution, underneath article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute, on gender grounds, towards ladies, girls, and different individuals non-conforming with the Taliban’s coverage on gender, gender identification or expression; and on political grounds towards individuals perceived as ‘allies of women and girls,’” reads an ICC press launch that introduced the warrants.
Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, in January introduced a request for warrants towards Taliban officers over their remedy of girls and different teams since they regained management of Afghanistan in 2021. The request marked the primary time the courtroom particularly named LGBTQ individuals as victims in a gender persecution case earlier than it.
“The issuance of the primary arrest warrants within the state of affairs in Afghanistan is a crucial vindication and acknowledgement of the rights of Afghan girls and ladies,” reads the press launch the ICC launched on Tuesday. “It additionally acknowledges the rights and lived experiences of individuals whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identification or expression, reminiscent of members of the LGBTQI+ neighborhood, and individuals whom the Taliban perceived as allies of women and girls.”
A report that Outright Worldwide launched in 2023 notes Taliban officers have systematically focused LGBTQ individuals — particularly homosexual males and transgender girls.
Taliban officers have subjected them to bodily and sexual assault in addition to arbitrary detention. The Outright Worldwide report additionally notes Taliban authorities have carried out public floggings for alleged same-sex sexual relations, and have collected intelligence on LGBTQ activists and neighborhood members.
Artemis Akbary, govt director of the Afghanistan LGBTIQ Group, praised the ICC.
“As we speak is a historic second for LGBTIQ victims and survivors,” he mentioned on social media.
