On an overwhelming vote, the Majlis converted Eid-e Fetr from a one-day to a two-day holiday.
The vote was taken four days before the new holiday. It converted the Wednesday Eid-e Fetr holiday into a three-day weekend—Wednesday, the new Thursday holiday and the Friday Sabbath—but with such little notice that few were able to make much of it.
The Majlis voted to add the new holiday every year on a vote of 137-to-9 with 13 abstentions. The discussions of recent years about the Islamic Republic having too many holidays and not enough workdays did not seem to have much impact.
The holiday had been proposed four weeks earlier by the cabinet.
Eid-e Fetr is one of the major Islamic holidays. It is the day following the final day of the fast-month of Ramadan and is a very festive occasion.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi marked the holiday with the mass issuance of pardons, as is the normal practice on that day throughout the Islamic world. Khamenehi pardoned or commuted the sentences of 1,218 inmates sentenced by the public courts, Revolutionary courts and armed forces courts.
No names of pardoned prisoners were announced. But the two American hikers just recently convicted remained in Evin prison and were clearly not covered by the amnesty, as many had anticipated.