Criminal court to probe Taliban, ISIS crimes
Afghanistan's recent history is littered with human rights abuses and war crimes.
The sorry thing is that it is
difficult to effectively investigate these abuses and hold the people believed
to be involved in them to account.
In 2010, thousands of secret war
documents released by the international nonprofit, WikiLeaks, instigated calls
for bringing war criminals from the Taliban to justice.
These calls were based on the fact
that Taliban fighters had become more daring in their systematic killing of
civilians, a war crime according to international conventions and norms.
War crimes investigated
The new prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, announced this month that his court
would reopen investigations into the crimes committed by the Taliban and ISIS
in Afghanistan, which is known by the name Khorasan Province.
Recent developments in Afghanistan
and the change of national authorities, he said, represent a significant change
in circumstances.
"After careful review, I have
come to the conclusion that, at this point, there is no longer any possibility
of genuine and effective internal investigations," Khan said.
He noted that the limited resources
of the International Criminal Court caused the investigations into war crimes
committed by the Taliban and the Khorasan Province to be limited.
Khan indicated that the
investigation would not include any practices carried out by US forces
throughout their presence in Afghanistan.
He attributed this decision to the dangers,
scale and continuing nature of alleged crimes by the Taliban and ISIS and the
need to establish credible cases that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt in
court.
Frequent violations
Afghan affairs specialists say this
is not the first time the International Criminal Court opens investigations
into alleged crimes by the Taliban.
The court had previously also accused
the movement of committing crimes.
The US and the UK accused the movement
of suppressing journalists, violating human rights and harassing women, since taking
over the whole of Afghanistan months ago.
In March 2020, the International
Criminal Court reported that prosecutors had been given the green light to open
an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and
abroad.
These crimes are linked to Afghans,
the Taliban and US forces.
The court said this decision was
made unanimously after an appeal by judges in The Hague, and an earlier ruling
was overturned.
