The ICC’s Arrest Warrants Against Taliban Leaders Set Clear Legal Precedent Against LGBTQ Persecution

At a moment, global human rights progress appears to be often faltering, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a long step forward.

Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest orders to the senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for the well -documented persecution of women and girls. However, the court also accused the Taliban officials, including the Supreme Leader, Hibbat Allah, Akhundzada and the President of the Judges Abdel Hakim Hakim, of crimes against humanity by targeting the gay people.

At a moment, global human rights progress appears to be often faltering, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a long step forward.

Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest orders to the senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for the well -documented persecution of women and girls. However, the court also accused the Taliban officials, including the Supreme Leader, Hibbat Allah, Akhundzada and the President of the Judges Abdel Hakim Hakim, of crimes against humanity by targeting the gay people.

By issuing these orders, the International Criminal Court has become the first international court to determine that it is a crime against humanity people’s persecution on the basis of sexual orientation or sexual identity. For the global LGBTQ community, this is a deep landmark.

Global indifference orders that often obscure the brutal facts that strange people face in conflict areas. The Supreme Court’s action is a strong promise that the global battle for dignity and justice will extend to every corner of our society, regardless of the period that has been ignored or ignored.

Since Kabul took over in 2021, the Taliban regime has imposed a rigid parental order in Afghanistan. Women and girls have been prevented from following higher and secondary education, and preventing them from public life by restricting their access to work and freedom of movement, and assigning the wearing of the burqa again.

Under the extremist rule, the Afghan LGBTQ also endured a campaign of terrorism, including arrests, torture, sexual violence and killing outside the judiciary. Since August 2021, people have been said to be detained by the Taliban police at checkpoints. The Taliban Supreme Court has been proudly published a blockage of people accused of homosexuality. Last August, the same decree that prevented women from speaking in public places also confirmed that homosexuality is a crime.

Although gender -based violence has been committed in wars throughout history, international law was slow to treat as a serious crime. The 1998 treaty that established the International Criminal Court, known as the Rome Law, was the first to classify “sexual persecution” as a crime against humanity. However, he was never prosecuted during the first two decades. In addition, there was no explicit signal to gay people in Rome, the statute until 2022, when the International Criminal Court adopted a gender persecution policy and embraced contemporary and comprehensive sex that includes explicitly protecting LGBTQ.

Many jurists have long argued that targeting people on the basis of sexual tendency and sexual identity is a form of sexual persecution, because they are exposed to the victim to overcome sexual roles. But the International Criminal Court judges have not had the opportunity to hear this analysis – so far.

For this reason, arrest orders in the International Criminal Court are very historical. Under the International Criminal Court system, judges must determine that the fees are legally sound before issuing orders. Regardless of the results of the cases brought against Akhundzada and Hakni, the court issued a clear precedent that the persecution of gay people is a crime against humanity. For the first time, an international court deals with violence against this society as one of the most grave crimes under international law.

The International Criminal Court recognition of LGBTQ as a crime against humanity represents a legal breakthrough. The precedent is not limited to the crimes of the Taliban-Fi to reshape the legal scene of how to define international law and trial of anti-bit of violence worldwide.

This ruling opens the door for prosecutors all over the world to implement the same logic in other places of conflict, including in cases that involve non -governmental actors such as militias, extremist groups or actual systems. For example, future investigations into violations in places such as Chechnya, parts of the coast or areas under the influence of the Islamic State can be explicitly against homosexuals as part of a wider pattern of sex -based persecution.

A long time ago, homosexuals of LGBTQ were persecuted in conflicts all over the world – with records dating back to World War II. One of the first massacres after Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany targeting an organization that strengthened the rights of the stranger, facilitated scientific research, and provided the gender medical care. From 1933 to 1945, the Nazis was persecuted by people, sending thousands to detention camps.

Recently, in 2015, the Islamic State acquired the attention of the world when it was executed by men of homosexuality by throwing buildings in Syria and Iraq and issued death orders for lesbians. LGBTQ members of Colombia faced brutal and organized violence, including rape, execution, and forced labor aimed at “correcting” their identities, and targeted attacks such as the arrest of proposed gay institutions. In the lands occupied by Russian in Ukraine, LGBTQ members were targeted systematically by the Russian forces-which were tortured, imprisoned and other forms of sexual persecution, including forcing them to assemble at checkpoints to detect rainbow tattoos or gay dating applications-that are likely to rise to wealth against mankind.

Of course, the imposition of fees on Taliban leaders with these crimes is only the beginning of a long operation to bring them to justice. The International Criminal Court does not have any enforcement authority, and this is one of the reasons why many things question the value of international law to confront the atrocities. In order for the Taliban leaders to be brought to trial, they will first need to arrest them. This will require them to travel outside Afghanistan and a foreign government to detention, or that the regime takes power in Afghanistan that would deliver them well to The Hague.

It is completely possible not to bring Akhundzada and my injustice to these crimes. But this does not mean that these accusations do not concern.

As a special adviser to the Criminal Court, I spent the past three years working in this case and the past two years in exchange for the strange Afghans who survived the Taliban violence and managed to escape from the country. These Afghans participated in a maze of shame, fear and dangers, as they face death threats just because they were. Many survivors are terrified about what can happen to them and their families to speak. Some still terrified that they can still force them to return to Afghanistan and bear more violence from their community and the Taliban.

These orders indicate an important message to victims all over the world: What the Taliban did to LGBTQ individuals. It is a crime. It is not just a crime against individual victims. The persecution of strange people is a crime against humanity – those that violate the dignity and security who are entitled to everyone – and will not pass anymore.

The arrest orders of the International Criminal Court are not only related to Afghanistan – they are a warning to all systems that intimidate gay people, whether these people are citizens in Uganda or people who live under Russian control in the occupied Ukrainian territory.

These notes are also important to me as a strange American while the administration of President Donald Trump encourages the growing cruciate campaign against gay in the United States. One of Trump’s first actions in his position was to issue an executive order to announce that the federal government does not recognize the transgender and transgender people. The administration has launched an investigation into the gender care providers for transit youth, which led to hospitals throughout the country to completely decline or prohibit this care. He also threatened to cut federal financing for teenage pregnancy prevention programs, which include LGBTQ youth.

At the same time, the Trump administration also imposed sanctions against the International Criminal Court Prosecutor and four judges. These penalties – which are largely designated for war criminals and terrorists – under the supervision of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and sending a chilling message to other international institutions that seek to hold strong countries accountable. On a wider scale, this measure indicates the rejection of multilateral standards and weakens the global framework for the implementation of the International Human Rights Law.

Even in the face of unprecedented repression, the orders of the International Criminal Court against the Taliban are a reminder that the LGBTQ community has allies around the world when our leaders have turned against us.

Through the arrest of Akhundzada and Hakni with crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court takes the forces of hatred and repression. At this dangerous moment, all of our design should enhance the struggle for justice.