The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has unsealed arrest warrants for two Taliban ministers accused of crimes against humanity through policies that restrict the rights of Afghan women and girls. The warrants, for Education Minister Habibullah Agha and Higher Education Minister Neda Mohammad Nadeem, were issued in September 2025 but remained under seal until Monday.
The court's Pre-Trial Chamber II said there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the two men committed "the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds". It found they are criminally responsible for ordering, inciting or soliciting persecution of women and girls. According to the court, decrees and edicts deprived women of freedom of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, and barred girls from school beyond the age of 12. The chamber said the persecution was linked to other alleged crimes, including imprisonment, torture, rape and enforced disappearance, and that it continued from the Taliban's return to power in August 2021 until at least 20 January 2025.
The two warrants follow others authorised in July 2025 against the Taliban's Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and Supreme Court President Abdul Hakim Haqqani. The chamber decided to unseal all four, with redactions, after concluding that publication would not unduly affect ongoing investigations. It said disclosure could also "prevent the commission of further crimes" and "promote cooperation by the international community" on Afghanistan.
The Taliban government quickly rejected the move. Its chief spokesman in Kabul said the authorities answer to Islamic sharia law and its courts, "and not to those of intelligence services or so-called courts". The ICC has no police force of its own and relies on member states to carry out arrests, so it is unclear when or whether the suspects could be detained.
The announcement came the same day the UN Human Rights Council, whose 47 member states were unanimous, urged the Taliban to repeal what it called the "worsening" and "systematic oppression of all women and girls". It described the harms as "unbearable, unjustifiable" and something that should "shock the conscience of humanity".
The human cost is visible across Afghanistan. People have described severe mental health problems linked to the education ban, with teenage girls and women mostly staying home. Universities are now men-only, and some women studying online are hampered by internet and electricity problems. Women are barred from most jobs and many public places, including parks, must cover everything but their eyes outside the home, and need a close male relative as escort on long journeys. Health workers say the ban on women qualifying as doctors is already causing staff shortages in hospitals.
Why this matters: the warrants extend the ICC's case from the Taliban's top leadership to officials who run the education system, and they treat gender-based persecution as a crime under international law. Analysts and the court itself suggest the move is likely to increase international pressure on Kabul.