Nine human rights organizations have called on world powers negotiating with Iran in Vienna “not to lift human rights sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The group, including the Netherlands-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, issued a statement Friday told world power trying to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal they should be “maintaining” sanctions against Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi was designated by the United States in 2019under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump allowing sanctions against anyone linked to the office of Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The rights’ groups’ statement attributed Raisi’s listing to his role 31 years earlier in the 1988 prison executions, which the US Treasury cited in its press release announcing the designation.

Iran, backed by other participants, has argued that talks in Vienna should stick to the original logic of the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), in isolating the nuclear from other issues.

The rights groups statement said US “human rights sanctions” were imposed due to “the Iranian government’s egregious rights violations and abuses,” and that Raisi had “personally participated in ‘Death Commissions’” in 1988.

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said: “We cannot sacrifice human rights at the mantle of the nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic.”

as/ms