The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for two senior members of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
The judges approved the warrants, finding that there were "substantial grounds" to believe that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani committed crimes against humanity by imposing increasingly severe restrictions on women and girls.
Since 2021, when the Taliban took over the capital Kabul and the former government fled the country, the new regime has, among other things, closed access to education for girls over the age of 12 and banned adult women from many jobs. In Afghanistan, women are prohibited from leaving the house without a male companion and are also forbidden from speaking loudly in public.
"While the Taliban has imposed certain rules and restrictions on the entire population, it specifically targets girls and women based on gender, depriving them of their fundamental rights and freedoms," the court said in a statement.
In response, the Taliban has said it does not recognize the ICC, and its warrant is a "clearly hostile act" and "an insult to the faith of Muslims worldwide."
