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The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity.

ICC judges said in a statement there were ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani ‘have committed... the crime against humanity of persecution... on gender grounds.’

‘While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,’ the court said.

The court said the alleged crimes had been committed between 15 August 2021 when the Taliban seized power and continued until at least January 20, 2025.

The Taliban had ‘severely deprived’ girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said.

‘In addition, other persons were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were regarded as inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender.’

The ICC, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It has no police force of its own and relies on its member states to carry out its arrest warrants—with mixed results.

In theory this means that anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.

On Monday, the United Nations General Assembly denounced the ‘systematic oppression’ of women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban authorities.

The resolution was adopted by 116 votes in favour versus the United States and Israel against, with 12 abstentions.

The text ‘expresses its serious concern about the grave, worsening, widespread and systematic oppression of all women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban.’

It said the Taliban, a strictly conservative Islamist armed group that took control of the country in 2021, ‘has put in place an institutionalised system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and the exclusion of women and girls.’