Human Rights Watch has called on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad to relieve the ministers of interior and information of their funcitons, reviving allegations that they were involved in grave human rights abuses over the past two decades.

In a briefing paper released on Thursday, the US-based human rights organisation says that in 1988, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, current interior minister, represented the ministry of intelligence on a three-person committee that ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners.