Prosecutor’s Statment – Peoples Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan

Dr. Benafsha Yaqoobi

Honourable Members of the Tribunal, Distinguished guests,

I stand before you today to speak on behalf of those who have been silenced — the women who are no longer allowed to raise their voices, the girls whose dreams have been locked behind school gates, the mothers who hide their daughters’ books in fear that a knock on the door could end a future.

Since August 15, 2021, Afghanistan has entered one of the darkest chapters in its modern history.

The Taliban, as the de facto authority, have imposed a deliberate, systematic, and institutionalized regime of gender persecution. This is not merely discrimination. It is the erasure of half a nation’s humanity. It is not only repression. It is a crime against humanity.

Evidence from survivors, witnesses, and international bodies reveals a coordinated campaign to exclude, silence, and control women — banning their education, barring them from work, erasing them from public life, enforcing strict dress codes, and punishing dissent with cruelty. These acts are not isolated; they are policy. They are intentional. And they are rooted in misogyny so deep it seeks to make women invisible — legally, socially, and spiritually. Members of the Tribunal, we are gathered here not only to record what has happened, but to affirm that the suffering of Afghan women and girls will not be forgotten. Their pain is not a local tragedy — it is a global moral crisis. When a regime succeeds in erasing women from public life, and the world looks away, it sets a precedent that threatens the moral fabric of humanity itself.

The purpose of this Tribunal is threefold:

1. To restore visibility and dignity to Afghan women and girls — those whose rights have been erased, and whose voices have been silenced.

2. To pursue people’s justice when formal systems of justice are absent, slow, or inaccessible.

3 .To advance global jurisprudence on gender persecution and gender apartheid, addressing the urgent legal and moral gaps that allow such crimes to persist with impunity.

This Tribunal is not an exercise in politics. It is a court of conscience. It is an act of remembrance — and resistance. Here, truth replaces silence, and testimony becomes a form of justice. We have taken a victim-centred approach. Our evidence comes from both inside and outside Afghanistan. Some witnesses will appear in person; others, for their safety, will testify through recorded or written statements. Their identities will be protected. But their truths will be heard. Every testimony has been given with free and informed consent, and each one is a piece of a larger mosaic of courage and survival. We stand here today not only to condemn the Taliban’s crimes, but to reclaim humanity itself from the grip of fear and silence. We stand for the right of every Afghan girl to learn, to dream, and to live in dignity. We stand for the mothers who refuse to surrender hope. And we stand for justice — not as vengeance, but as remembrance and moral duty. Because when justice is absent from institutions, it must rise from conscience. When power silences truth, the people must speak. And when humanity is under attack, silence is complicity.

Honourable members, this Tribunal is a testimony to the resilience of Afghan women and to the unwavering belief that truth has power — even against tyranny. Let it be written in the record of history that we did not look away. That we bore witness. That we stood on the side of justice, equality, and hope. In the name of women, In the name of freedom, In the name of justice —We begin.

Dr Orzala Nemat

Honorable Members of the Tribunal, Respectful Witnesses and Survivors, Esteemed Judges, Prosecutors, and Members of Civil Society, We rise here today in solemn duty and unwavering conviction to speak on behalf of the countless Afghan women and girls whose voices have been silenced, whose rights have been stripped, and whose very futures are being systematically erased by the Taliban regime.

Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban have enacted a targeted and brutal campaign of gender persecution across the country. These are not only a violation of national and international laws—they have a humanitarian and developmental catastrophe.

Honourable judges and Members of the Tribunal, At this point, I would like to present the accused party for this indictment, the Taliban:

THE ACCUSED

The Prosecutors identify the Taliban and its individual leaders as the principal perpetrators of a pattern of persecution that meets the threshold of the crime against humanity of gender persecution detailed in Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Accordingly, the Prosecutors hereby present their official indictment of:

Individual Taliban Leaders;
The Taliban as a group; and
The State of Afghanistan under the Taliban’s de facto control.

Since its founding, the Taliban has been led by a small circle of influential figures whose decisions have shaped the group’s ideological direction, military strategies, and governance style. These leaders operate through both formal structures—such as the Leadership Council (Rahbari Shura)—and informal structures, including networks with religious fronts, as well as insurgency fronts.

The Taliban’s system of governance is closed, which means the entire authority is exclusively centred around the supreme leader and his decisions, particularly on key national issues.

None of the powerful and influential leaders within the movement has so far been able to challenge the top leadership.

This governance model is deeply centralised, theocratic, and unaccountable, lacking any civilian oversight or independent judiciary.

The following individuals represent the core of the Taliban’s current power hierarchy: (i) Hibatullah Akhundzada;

(ii) Sirajuddin Haqqani; (iii) Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob; (iv) Abdul Ghani Baradar; (v) Noor Mohammad Saqib; (vi) Sheikh Mohammad Khalid Hanafi; (vii) Sheikh Abdul Hakim Haqqani; (viii) Neda Mohammad Nadeem; (ix) Habibullah Agha; and (x) Abdul Haq Wasiq

As a group, The Taliban, formed in 1994 in Kandahar by religious students and ex-mujahideen led by Mullah Omar, rose to power amidst Afghanistan’s post-Soviet turmoil. They established the Islamic Emirate in 1996, ruling until 2001, and returned in 2021. Throughout both periods, they imposed harsh gender restrictions. Since reclaiming power, their enforcement of rigid gender norms has intensified,

Taliban is herein identified not merely as a de facto governing authority, but as a perpetrator of a coordinated, state-level campaign of gender persecution, carried out with the intent to erase women from public life and to restructure Afghan society around male supremacy.

The Taliban’s campaign is enforced through violence, coercion, and alleged religious justification based solely on the Taliban leadership’s perception of Islam and Sharia’.

Azadah Raz Mohammad
Honourable members of the Tribunal, Our courageous witnesses – who has enabled us to stand here today, esteem guests,

The prosecutorial team respectfully submits that this Tribunal convenes under the moral and juridical mandate of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, which, since 1979, has served as an independent forum for addressing grave violations of human and peoples’ rights where formal legal systems have failed to act.

Its authority is rooted in the conscience of humanity and guided by well-established principles of international law, drawing from international criminal law, humanitarian law, customary international law, and the fundamental rights enshrined in binding human rights treaties.

We are gathered here today to bring an attention to the situation of women and girls of Afghanistan who are enduring a systematic and brutal regime of oppression under Taliban rule. This is not a situation of sporadic or incidental abuse; it is a coordinated and sustained campaign of gender-based persecution.

Through official decrees, institutional policies, and enforced violence, the Taliban have deliberately erased women from public life, banning them from education, employment, healthcare, and participation in society, while also denying their most basic freedoms such as movement, expression, and have severely restricting their access to justice and healthcare.

Accordingly, the Prosecutorial team submits that the Taliban’s conduct falls within the definition of crimes against humanity as codified under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

In the absence of domestic remedies and obstacles inherited to international legal institutions, this Tribunal stands as a necessary venue for justice. We are here because impunity must not be allowed to prevail unchallenged.

Our team has relied on witnesses and survivors to demonstrates that the Taliban’s actions meet and exceed the legal threshold enumerated under Article 7 of the RS.

In the indictment submitted and through our witnesses today, the prosecutorial team will try to establish that the Taliban policies on gender persecution are not isolated or random; they are systematic, institutionalized, and intentionally directed at women and girls solely on the basis of gender. This is the very essence of gender-based persecution under international criminal law.

Therefore, the prosecutorial team will respectfully assert today that the Taliban’s actions are crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.

Dr. Moheb Mudessir

Based on the evidence presented in the Statement of the Case, the Taliban’s own public decrees, and the Witness Testimonies that will be submitted before this Tribunal, it is evident that since 15 August 2021, the Taliban’s de facto authorities have pursued a deliberate, systematic, and institutionalized campaign of discrimination and repression against women, girls, and other marginalized groups in Afghanistan.

This campaign, operationalized through a series of edicts, ministerial decrees, and coercive enforcement mechanisms, constitutes an orchestrated attempt to eliminate women from public, political, social, and economic life.1

1 These violations, ranging from exclusion from education and healthcare to arbitrary detention, torture, and the erasure of civic participation, collectively reveal a deliberate strategy of subjugation and systematic discrimination against women and girls.

Although the Taliban are not recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, their exercise of effective control over the country confers upon them a legal responsibility to ensure compliance with Afghanistan’s binding international obligations. The Taliban’s actions, as de facto authorities, constitute breaches of multiple core international human rights instruments to which Afghanistan is a State Party. As affirmed by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee and international jurisprudence, treaty obligations do not lapse with political transition; they persist and continue to bind any successor or de facto authority.2

This regime of gender-based repression under the Taliban’s de facto rule stands in direct violation of Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention Against Torture (CAT), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), among others binding international human rights treaties to which Afghanistan remains a State Party. The Prosecution therefore respectfully submits that the Taliban’s policies and practices targeting women and girls constitute widespread and systematic violations of these treaties and of Afghanistan’s binding obligations under international law.