The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants against the main Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity. From anti-capitalist and revolutionary feminism, we denounce this patriarchal-fundamentalist regime and call to strengthen the internationalist struggle for emancipation.
By Florencia Salgueiro and Chaiaa Ahmed Baba
Arrest warrants issued against Taliban leaders
On July 8, 5 the ICC issued arrest warrants for Haibatullah Akhundzada, Taliban supreme leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, chief justice of the Afghan Supreme Court, for crimes against humanity: persecution of women, girls and LGBTQI+ community, through murder, torture, rape, imprisonment and enforced disappearances from August 2021 to at least January 2025.
The Court was quite late in remembering the aberrations the Taliban have been committing since they first came to power in 1996.
The ultra-reactionary fundamentalist regime’s favorite target: women
The rise of the Taliban regime is a radical expression of patriarchy supported by reactionary capitalism that uses conservative interpretation of religious law as a tool of social control.
The elimination of basic rights is a brutal regression that has particularly affected Afghan women since the return of the Taliban regime to power in 2021, reinforcing social and economic oppression.
The restrictions they have imposed include the prohibition of higher education for girls, the elimination of all female public participation, and the imposition of ultra-conservative moral codes ranging from clothing to all areas of daily life.
Its regime, which is based on the brutal institutional disciplining and oppression of women, who are excluded from public spaces, and on repression of workers and people, mainly the opposition and the left, is ultra-reactionary and conservative.
The limitations of bourgeois courts
The arrest warrants of the ICC constitute international pressure, however, expectations cannot be placed in that instance. It is a legal instrument of the imperialist bourgeois order and of legal control of the world status quo; it only pursues individual crimes without questioning the structures that produce them.
The Court is generally late and only acts when these heinous acts become massively repudiated. Moreover, the effective execution of its rulings depends on the political will and cooperation of the bourgeois member states, with the result that its own decisions most of the time do not go beyond formality.
Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu has had a warrant for his arrest since November 2024, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a weapon; and Russian President Vladimir Putin has an arrest warrant for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children. Yet both keep waging war and killing with impunity.
Solidarity with Afghan women and oppressed sectors
The best way to confront the Taliban regime is through mobilization and organization together with the workers and international solidarity, without supporting US imperialism or any power intervening in the region.
We denounce that the Taliban embody an extreme form of patriarchal capitalism that exploits, oppresses and reduces women to servitude. We stand in solidarity with Afghan women and oppressed collectives, with workers and the people who on other occasions have already raised their voices against power.
You may also be interested in: ISL Declaration on Afghanistan: Against Taliban barbarism and imperialism, solidarity with the working people and the women of Afghanistan
