A/HRC/34/40 the Government to introduce a moratorium on the use of the death penalty and to prohibit and refrain from the execution of juvenile offenders in all circumstances. 86. The Secretary-General reiterates his predecessor’s concern about continued restrictions on public freedoms and the related persecution of civil society actors, the persistence of discrimination against women and minorities and the conditions of detention. He urges the Government to create space for human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists to exercise their peaceful, legitimate activities safely and freely, and to release political prisoners, including human rights defenders and lawyers, detained solely for legitimately exercising their right to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. 87. The Secretary-General encourages the Government to take practical steps to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls in all spheres of life — civil, political, economic, social and cultural. 88. The Secretary-General urges the Government to take prompt steps to protect the rights of all persons belonging to religious and ethnic minorities and to remove and address all forms of discrimination against them. 89. The Secretary-General welcomes the engagement of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the human rights treaty bodies and urges the Government to follow up on the concluding observations of all treaty bodies. He also calls on the Government to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. 90. The Secretary-General welcomes the invitation that the Government has extended to the High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran and encourages it to cooperate fully with the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran by giving her access to the country. He also encourages the Islamic Republic of Iran to engage constructively with the Office of the High Commissioner on the follow-up to all recommendations in the present and previous reports, as well as those of all the human rights mechanisms, including the universal periodic review. 15