A/HRC/40/24 71. The Secretary-General urges the Government to ensure that international standards and guarantees of due process and fair trial are met, notably by ensuring that all defendants, including those accused of crimes against the internal and external security of the State, are assured access to counsel of their choosing during the preliminary investigative stage and all subsequent stages of the judicial process. 72. The Secretary-General urges the Government to repeal laws authorizing the use of torture and ill-treatment as a form of punishment, and to ensure that prompt, thorough and effective investigations are undertaken by independent and impartial bodies into all deaths in custody and reports of torture or other ill-treatment and that those responsible are held accountable. 73. The Secretary-General takes due note of the economic and financial challenges facing the Islamic Republic of Iran and encourages the Government to take all measures necessary to mitigate their effects and to meet its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, including on the protection of vulnerable groups. The Secretary-General urges the Government to facilitate trade in medicines and other essential humanitarian items. 74. The Secretary-General urges the Government to ensure that human rights defenders, human rights lawyers, journalists and environmentalists can perform their roles safely and freely, without fear of harassment, arrest, detention and prosecution, and to release all those detained for legitimately and peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. 75. The Secretary-General urges the Government to repeal laws that criminalize or unduly restrict freedom of expression online, to ensure that online content is only restricted pursuant to a decision by an independent and impartial judicial authority in accordance with due process and to revoke decisions that enable the monitoring or filtering of content and that are inconsistent with the right to privacy. 76. The Secretary-General urges the Government to take further practical steps to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and girls, in accordance with international standards, and to ensure that the rights of women human rights defenders and human rights lawyers are protected. 77. The Secretary-General urges the Government to protect the rights of all persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities and to address all forms of discrimination against them, and to immediately and unconditionally release all those imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief. 78. The Secretary-General calls upon 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 Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 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. 79. The Secretary-General welcomes the engagement of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the human rights treaty bodies and calls upon the Government to follow up on the concluding observations of all treaty bodies and recommendations of special procedures, and to engage in a dialogue and cooperate with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. 80. The Secretary-General encourages the Government to continue its increasing constructive engagement with OHCHR in following up on all recommendations made in the previous and present reports, and those of international human rights mechanisms, including the universal periodic review. 18