<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Spanish Government has received “with satisfaction” the arrest warrants requested by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the supreme leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the president of the Supreme Court of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for crimes against humanity related to gender-based persecution.</strong></h4> “Spain welcomes the request for arrest warrants against two authorities of the de facto Taliban government in Afghanistan, for crimes against humanity for gender-based persecution,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared this Friday in a press release. “In November, Spain urged the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to include crimes committed against women and girls in its investigation into the situation in Afghanistan,” it continued. “Spain will continue to demand accountability from the Taliban government, before international bodies, for the crimes committed against women and girls in Afghanistan and the serious violations of international law,” he added. The ICC prosecutor general, Karim A.A. Khan, requested this past Thursday arrest warrants against Haibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani because he considers that “there are reasonable grounds” to consider them “criminally responsible for the crime against humanity of gender-based persecution.” Specifically, both Taliban leaders are accused of “persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as people who the Taliban perceived as not conforming to their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and people who the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women.” “This persecution was committed from at least August 15, 2021 until today, throughout the territory of Afghanistan,” he added. This ongoing persecution, he continued, “entails numerous and serious deprivations of the victims’ fundamental rights, contrary to international law, including the right to physical integrity and autonomy, freedom of movement and expression, education, private and family life and freedom of assembly.” In addition, these serious deprivations of fundamental rights were also committed in connection with other crimes under the Rome Statute. “Perceived resistance or opposition to the Taliban was, and is, brutally repressed through the commission of crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts,” the prosecutor said. “These are the first requests for arrest warrants in the situation in Afghanistan,” Khan said. “My Office will soon submit further requests for other senior members of the Taliban,” he announced. The prosecutor denounces that Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQI+ community, “face unprecedented, unacceptable and continued persecution by the Taliban” and warns that “the Taliban’s interpretation of sharia should not, and cannot, be used to justify the deprivation of fundamental human rights or the related commission of crimes under the Rome Statute.” It is now up to the judges of the International Criminal Court to determine whether these requests for arrest warrants establish reasonable grounds to believe that the aforementioned individuals committed the alleged crimes. “As in all situations, I ask States parties to fully cooperate with the Court and assist it in enforcing any court order,” added Khan, who specified that his Office continues to investigate, also in Afghanistan, the alleged crimes committed by individual members of the Taliban and the Islamic State in Khorasan province.
