The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor has filed applications for arrest warrants for two senior Taliban officials, charging them with gender persecution, including of LGBTQ+ Afghans.
In a January 23 statement, ICC Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan said that after an investigation of alleged crimes committed against Afghan civilians, his office has determined that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhunzada, and the Chief Justice of the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,’ Abdul Hakim Haqqani, bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds, under article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute,” the 1998 international treaty that established the ICC.
Related:
As Artemis Akbary, executive director of the Afghanistan LGBTIQ Organization, told the Washington Blade, Khan’s application marks “the first time in history that the ICC has officially recognized the crimes committed against LGBTIQ+ people.”
Global perspectives delivered right to your inbox
Our newsletter bridges borders to bring you LGBTQ+ news from around the world.
“These applications recognize that Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban,” Khan wrote in his statement.
Khan wrote that since at least August 2021, Akhunzada and Haqqani have been responsible for “severe deprivations of victims’ fundamental rights” under international law, “including the right to physical integrity and autonomy, to free movement and free expression, to education, to private and family life, and to free assembly.” He added that these crimes have been committed in connection with others under the Rome Statute, “including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts.”
The Taliban returned to power following the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, instituting an immediate return to its interpretation of Sharia law, which Khan argued should not “be used to justify the deprivation of fundamental human rights.” As the Blade notes, a 2022 Human Rights Watch report documented nearly 60 cases of targeted violence against LGBTQ+ Afghans in just the months following the Taliban’s return to power. The following year, Outright International reported that Taliban security officials appeared to have ramped up their systematic attacks on the country’s LGBTQ+ community, targeting gay men and transgender women in particular, “subjecting them to physical and sexual assault and arbitrary detention” as well as public floggings.
In October 2023, Afghan LGBTQ+ rights group Rainbow Afghanistan detailed the harrowing abuses queer people in the country have faced since 2021. In an open letter, the group said that LGBTQ+ Afghans had been tortured, stoned to death, sexually assaulted, and forced into heterosexual marriages, among other atrocities, while “a large number of members of the LGBT community lost their lives due to suicide.” The group called on the United Nations and international human rights organizations to act.
“This application for an arrest warrant sends a strong message that the international community rejects the gender persecution of LGBTIQ+ people,” Afghanistan LGBTIQ Organization’s Akbary said of Khan’s action. “LGBTIQ+ people in Afghanistan need our support and solidarity more than ever, and we must ensure that they have access to justice and accountability.”
Human Rights Watch International Justice Director Liz Evenson said that Khan’s application for the warrants “should put the Taliban’s oppression of women, girls, and gender nonconforming people back on the international community’s radar.”
“With no justice in sight in Afghanistan, the ICC warrant requests offer an essential pathway for a measure of accountability,” Evenson said, according to the Blade.
ILGA World Executive Director Julia Ehrt called the ICC’s recognition of LGBTQ+ people among the victims of gender persecution “groundbreaking.”
As Khan noted in his statement, ICC judges will determine whether arrest warrants for Akhunzada and Haqqani will be issued, and if so, Khan said his office would work closely with ICC Registrar Osvaldo Zavala Glier to ensure that Akhunzada and Haqqani face justice.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
