Pakistan(National Times)- THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Thursday he had applied for arrest warrants for two Taliban leaders in Afghanistan including supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, accusing them of crimes against humanity for widespread discrimination against women and girls. A statement issued by the office of chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said evidence collected as part of investigations provided reasonable grounds to believe that Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, who has served as chief justice since 2021, “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.” They are “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women,” the statement said. The persecution has taken place from at least Aug 15, 2021 until the present day, across the territory of Afghanistan and is ongoing, the prosecutor said. There was no immediate comment by Taliban leaders on the prosecutor’s statement. It will now be up to a three-judge panel at the ICC to rule on the prosecution request, which has no set deadline. Such procedures take an average of three months. In August last year, the Taliban codified a long set of rules governing morality in line with Islamic sharia law. The rules are enforced by the morality ministry, which says it has detained thousands of people for violations. Khan said his office was demonstrating its commitment to pursuing accountability for gender-based crimes and that the Taliban’s interpretation of sharia could not be a justification for human rights abuses or crimes. The prosecutor said Afghan women and girls are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing “persecution” by the Taliban. “Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable,” he added. The Afghanistan probe is one of the longest by ICC prosecutors and has been beset by legal and practical delays. The initial preliminary examination started in 2007 and it was only in 2022 that a full-scale investigation moved forward. Since Taliban returned to power in 2021 it has clamped down on women’s rights, including limits to schooling, work and general independence in daily life.