Tehran, March 31 (IANS): Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has pardoned and commuted the sentences of hundreds of convicts.

Khamenei on Tuesday agreed to a request by judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani for clemency on 809 inmates on the occasion of the Iran Day, which falls on April 1 this year, state-run newsagency IRNA reported.

The day marks the 36th anniversary of a referendum in which Iranians voted for the establishment of an Islamic republic following the collapse of an autocratic monarchy that was solidly backed by the US and its Western allies.

In the two-day referendum staged in late March after the 1979 victory of Islamic republic over the monarchy, more than 98.2 percent of Iranians voted "yes" to the establishment of an Islamic republic system.

Since then, the nation has annually celebrated the anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, referred to as the Islamic Republic Day.