The former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has called on the International Criminal Court to prosecute those responsible for the “systematic brutalisation of women and girls” in Afghanistan. It’s been two years since the Taliban swept to power after the West’s chaotic exit from Kabul. The Taliban’s leadership has set about expunging women from every part of public life through religious edicts and violence. Brown, who now works as the UN special envoy for global education, said the evidence of crimes against humanity was “overwhelming” and said there was “complete discrimination against women”. His appeal follows an extraordinary intervention from Tobias Ellwood MP, chair of the Commons defence select committee, who praised the Taliban’s governance while on a trip to Afghanistan in July and called for the UK to reengage with the fundamentalists. Ellwood later apologised.
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