The top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he will seek an arrest warrant for senior leaders of the Taliban government in Afghanistan over their persecution of women and girls.

Karim Khan says there are reasonable grounds to suspect Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani are criminally responsible for gender-based crimes against humanity .

ICC judges will now decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.

The ICC investigates and brings to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and intervenes when national authorities are unable or unwilling to prosecute.

Khan said in a statement that the two men were “criminally responsible for the persecution of Afghan girls and women and those whom the Taliban considers to be inconsistent with their gender identity or expression of ideological expectations and those whom the Taliban considers to be allies of girls and women”.

He added that opposition to the Taliban government was “brutally suppressed through crimes such as murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearances and other inhumane acts.”

The statement stated that the persecution has been carried out across Afghanistan from at least August 15, 2021 to the present.

Akhundzada became the Taliban’s top commander in 2016 and is now the leader of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, he joined an Islamic group that opposed Soviet military operations in Afghanistan.

Haqqani is a close associate of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and represented the Taliban as a negotiator in discussions with U.S. representatives in 2020.

The Taliban government has yet to comment on the ICC statement.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban during the 9/11 attacks in New York, but the Taliban government has yet to be formally recognized by any other foreign power.

Since then, the “moral law” has meant that women have lost dozens of rights in the state.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls do not have access to secondary and tertiary education – approximately half a million people have been deliberately denied access.

The Taliban have repeatedly promised to re-enroll once a series of issues are resolved, including ensuring that the curriculum is “Islamic”. This hasn’t happened yet.

Beauty salons have been closed and women are banned from parks, gyms and bathrooms.

A dress code means they must be fully covered, and strict rules prohibit them from traveling without a male companion or looking into a man’s eyes unless they are related by blood or marriage.

December, Women are also banned from training as midwives and nurseseffectively cutting off their last avenue for further education in the country.