Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Charged Islamic institutions and contexts Other Islamic authority or family context Afghanistan · 2025

ICC warrants: Taliban supreme leader and chief justice accused of gender persecution

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Charged

Authority role

Taliban supreme leader styled Amir-ul-Momineen, Taliban chief justice, de facto religious and judicial authorities

Organization

Taliban de facto authorities, Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice

Spiritual nexus

The ICC alleges that the two de facto leaders ordered or maintained a system of persecution through policies reflecting the Taliban's ideological rules on gender. UNAMA documents the same enforcement structure: the virtue-and-vice law stresses obedience to the Taliban leader based on his claimed superior religious qualifications, identifies Hanafi jurisprudence as its interpretive source and authorizes inspectors to enforce mandatory dress, prayer, gender segregation, male-guardian requirements and other restrictions. The charged nexus is the use of claimed religious and judicial authority to create and enforce the alleged persecution.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation
  • Threatened spiritual consequence
  • Other spiritual authority or belief

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2025-01-23 · prosecution applications for arrest warrants

    International Criminal Court, Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, ICC-02/17. The Prosecutor applied for warrants against Haibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, alleging their responsibility for persecution as a crime against humanity on gender and political grounds from at least August 15, 2021 through at least January 20, 2025.

  2. 2025-07-08 · arrest warrants issued

    International Criminal Court, Pre-Trial Chamber II. The chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Akhundzada and Haqqani bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution and issued warrants for their arrest. The warrants are accusations at the pre-trial stage; neither man has been tried or convicted in this proceeding.

Appellate history

  1. Date in cited record · undefined

    undefined

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • religious edicts and decrees enforced as state rules
  • mandatory obedience to the supreme leader based on claimed religious qualification
  • virtue-and-vice inspection and punishment
  • restrictions on education, movement, work, expression and family life
  • detention and other alleged violence used to enforce gender rules

Primary record

Sources

international court record arrest warrant announcement International Criminal Court, 'Situation in Afghanistan: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II issues arrest warrants for Haibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani' (July 8, 2025).

The court's official announcement identifies the two accused, their offices, the reasonable-grounds standard, the charged crime against humanity of persecution, the alleged victim groups and the period covered by the warrants.

international court filing arrest warrant application ICC Office of the Prosecutor, public redacted application for a warrant of arrest for Haibatullah Akhundzada, ICC-02/17-224-Red (Jan. 23, 2025).

The prosecutor's public filing states the alleged modes of responsibility, charged period, policies and acts supporting the persecution allegation, Akhundzada's claimed supreme religious authority and the prosecution's evidentiary and admissibility theory. It is an accusation, not a judgment.

un official monitoring report institutional enforcement and nexus United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Report on the Implementation, Enforcement and Impact of the Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan (Apr. 2025).

UNAMA's nationwide monitoring report documents the law's religious-authority structure, required obedience to the Taliban leader, Hanafi interpretive basis, inspectors' powers, enforced prayer and dress rules, male-guardian and education restrictions, detention practices and measured effects on women, men and religious minorities.

Related record

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