The Egyptian authorities pardoned and released 2,376 prisoners, including 627 debtors, on the occasion of Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

The pardon is instructed by presidential decrees and initiatives issued by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to free prisons of jailed debtors and to release those entitled to pardon after inspections conducted by special committees.

"The release comes out of the Interior Ministry's keenness to implement the president's initiative dubbed 'Prisons without Debtors' and to apply the punitive policy in its modern form," said the police statement.

Egypt usually frees hundreds of prisoners, via a pardon or a conditional release, on national and religious holidays.

In mid-June, Egypt similarly pardoned 3,477 prisoners on the advent of Eid al-Fitr, or Fast-breaking Feast, holiday that comes at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Later in July, 700 prisoners were pardoned on the 66th anniversary of the July 23 Revolution that was led by Egyptian military officers in 1952 and ended monarchy in the country.

Xinhua