Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Friday an arrest warrant sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its leaders was “politically motivated”.
It comes a day after the ICC chief prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women — a crime against humanity.
“Like many other decisions of the (ICC), it is devoid of a fair legal basis, is a matter of double standards and is politically motivated,” said a statement from the foreign ministry posted on social media platform X.
“It is regrettable that this institution has turned a blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by foreign forces and their domestic allies during the twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan,” it said.
It said the court should “not attempt to impose a particular interpretation of human rights on the entire world and ignore the religious and national values of people of the rest of the world”.
The Taliban swept back to power in 2021 after ousting the American-backed government in a rapid but largely bloodless military takeover.
Afghanistan’s Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Nabi Omari, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, said the ICC “can’t scare us”.
“If these were fair and true courts, they should have brought America to the court, because it is America that has caused wars, the issues of the world are caused by America,” he said at an event in eastern Khost cit.
‘Unconscionable persecution by Taliban
It is the only country in the world where girls and women are banned from education.
Women have been ordered to cover their hair and faces and wear all-covering dress, have been barred from parks and stopped from working in government offices.
ICC chief Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds”.
