CCPR/C/IRN/CO/3 wife from entering employment. The State party should also adopt legislation giving Iranian women the right to transmit their nationality to their children. 10. The Committee is concerned that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community face harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty. It is also concerned that these persons face discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, as well as social exclusion within the community (arts. 2 and 26). The State party should repeal or amend all legislation which provides for or could result in discrimination against, and prosecution and punishment of, people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It should ensure that anyone held solely on account of freely and mutually agreed sexual activities or sexual orientation should be released immediately and unconditionally. The State party should also take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to eliminate and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, and to ensure that individuals of different sexual orientation or gender identity are protected from violence and social exclusion within the community. The Committee reaffirms that all of these matters fall entirely within the purview of the rights contained in the Covenant, and therefore within the Committee’s mandate. It urges the State party to include detailed information on the enjoyment of Covenant rights by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in its next periodic report. 11. The Committee is concerned about the absence of specific provisions on domestic violence within the Penal Code, as well as the lack of investigation, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of domestic violence. It is also concerned that a husband is exempted from punishment for voluntary manslaughter in the event that he murders his wife on suspicion of adultery (arts. 2 and 26). The State party should adopt legislation criminalizing domestic violence and take steps to effectively combat domestic violence. It should ensure that victims have immediate access to means of redress and protection, including through the establishment of a sufficient number of safe houses for victims. The State party should ensure that acts of domestic violence are effectively investigated and that perpetrators are prosecuted and sanctioned. The State party should also ensure that a husband is not exempted from punishment for voluntary manslaughter, in the event that he murders his wife on suspicion of adultery. 12. The Committee continues to be deeply concerned about the extremely high and increasing number of death sentences pronounced and carried out in the State party, the wide range and often vague definition of offences for which the death penalty is applied, and the large number of capital crimes and execution methods. The Committee is also concerned about the continued use of public executions, as well as stoning, as a method of execution. It also notes with concern the high rate of State executions in ethnic minority areas (arts. 6 and 7). The State party should consider abolishing the death penalty or at least revise the Penal Code to restrict the imposition of the death penalty to only the “most serious crimes”, within the meaning of article 6, paragraph 2, of the Covenant and the Committee’s general comment No. 6 (1982) on the right to life. It should ensure that, whenever it is imposed, the requirements of articles 6 and 14 of the Covenant are fully met. It should also ensure that everyone sentenced to death, after exhaustion of all legal avenues of appeal, has an effective opportunity to exercise the right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence from the relevant authorities. The State party 3