In a move human rights defenders decried as “shameful,” the Trump administration revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor this week for trying to investigate alleged war crimes committed by American forces in Afghanistan.
“What we can confirm is that the U.S. authorities have revoked the prosecutor’s visa for entry into the U.S.,” Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s office said in a statement. The decision, per her office, shouldn’t interfere with her travel to the United Nations headquarters in New York City.
“Washington’s attempt to intimidate the ICC by canceling the ICC prosecutor’s visa over a possible Afghanistan investigation is the Trump administration’s latest shameful attack on the rule of law,” said Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch.
Katherine Gallagher, an international human rights attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, condemned the move as “interference with judicial proceedings” that violates international law.
While the decision was widely criticized in the international community, it was not a surprise.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced last month that the administration would revoke or deny visas for any court personnel who try to probe or prosecute American officials or key allies—which critics called a “blatant effort to intimidate and retaliate against judges, prosecutors, and advocates seeking justice for victims of serious human rights abuses.”
Pompeo’s announcement came after John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser and a longtime critic of the ICC, threatened to impose sanctions on court officials in September if they continued to pursue an investigation into U.S. service members’ conduct in Afghanistan.
Under the H.W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, the United States has refused to join or support the Hauge-based court, which probes and prosecutes crimes of aggression, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide under international law.
In November of 2017, Bensouda requested a probe of potential war crimes committed by U.S. military forces and members of the CIA in Afghanistan. The ICC has not yet made a final decision about whether to open a formal investigation.
Though critics oppose the Trump administration’s visa ban on ICC personnel who are pushing for the investigation as an intimidation tactic, it does not appear to be having that impact on Bensouda, a Gambian lawyer.
“The Office of the Prosecutor has an independent and impartial mandate under the Rome statute of the ICC,” the statement from her office said.
“The prosecutor and her office will continue to undertake that statutory duty with utmost commitment and professionalism,” it concluded, “without fear or favor.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 432 new monthly donors in the next 7 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy