ISLAMABAD: Two top rights groups on Friday slammed the severe restrictions imposed on girls and women by the Taliban in Afghanistan as gender-based persecution, and ‘crime against humanity’.
According to Arab News, Amnesty International and the International Commission for Jurists, or ICJ, underscored how the Taliban crackdown on Afghan girls and women’s rights, coupled with “imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment,” could constitute gender persecution under the International Criminal Court.
The report by Amnesty and ICJ, titled “The Taliban’s war on women: The crime against humanity of gender persecution in Afghanistan,” cited the ICC statute, which lists gender-based persecution as a crime against humanity.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as the United States and NATO troops were in their final withdrawal weeks after two decades of war.
Despite the first promises of more moderate rule, the Taliban started to enforce bans on girls and women soon after their takeover, barring them from public spaces and most jobs and banning education for girls beyond the sixth grade. The measures harked back to the previous Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s when they imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law or Sharia.
The harsh edicts prompted an international outcry against the already ostracized Taliban, whose administration has not been officially recognized by the UN and the international community.
In the report, Santiago A. Canton, the ICJ secretary general, said the Taliban’s actions are of such “magnitude, gravity and systematic nature” that they qualify “as a crime against humanity of gender persecution.”
Both organizations called on the International Criminal Court to include this crime in their ongoing investigation into what is happening in Afghanistan and take legal action. They called countries “to exercise universal jurisdiction” and hold the Taliban accountable under international law.
The report accused the Taliban of targeting women and girls who have taken part in peaceful protests by detaining, forcibly disappearing, and subjecting them to torture in custody. The report said that the Taliban have also forced them to sign “confessions” or “agreements” not to protest again.
