Cuba’s government said Thursday night that it would release 51 people from the island’s prisons in an unexpected move.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the release in the upcoming days stems from a spirit of goodwill and close relations with the Vatican.

The government did not identify who it would release, except to say that “all have served a significant part of their sentence and have maintained good conduct in prison.”

The announcement was made just hours Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is scheduled to speak early Friday in another rare meeting with the press “to address national and international issues.”

The government said it has granted pardons to 9,905 inmates since 2010. It added that in the past three years, another 10,000 people sentenced to imprisonment were released.

In January 2025, Cuba released prominent dissident José Daniel Ferrer as part of a government decision to gradually free more than 500 prisoners following talks with the Vatican.

Ferrer left Cuba last October and is now in the United States.

He was one of several prisoners released in early 2025 as part of talks with the Vatican. The releases began a day after President Joe Biden’s administration announced his intent to lift the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

It wasn’t immediately known if any of the people the government plans to release are political prisoners.

The nonprofit Prisoners Defenders has said there were 1,214 political prisoners in Cuba as of February 2026.

Previous release

Cuba released prominent dissident José Daniel Ferrer from prison, as part of a government decision to gradually free more than 500 prisoners following talks with the Vatican.

Ferrer, a strong opponent of the island’s communist government, confirmed to The Associated Press he was freed and that he was at home in Palma Soriano, a town in the province of Santiago, more than 600 miles east of Havana.

“I am fine, surrounded by family and friends,” he said by phone. “I had been arbitrarily imprisoned for the third time, and a false judicial process had been set up.”

The releases are also taking place days after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced his intent to lift the U.S. designation of the island nation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

At the time, U.S. government said it notified Congress about the intent to lift the designation of Cuba as part of a deal facilitated by the Catholic Church, and that Cuban authorities would release some of them by the end of the Biden administration at noon on Jan. 20.

Cuba then informed Pope Francis it would gradually release 553 convicts as authorities explore the legal and humanitarian ways to make it happen. Havana said, however, that the gesture to the pontiff is unrelated to the U.S. decision to lift the designation.

Cuban civil groups monitoring the cases of detainees on the island say Cuba has released about 30 people in the past two days, including Ferrer.

In 2020, after being in prison for six months, Ferrer was placed under house arrest after a court sentenced him to 4 1/2 years for assault and kidnapping. But then in 2021 he was sent back to jail after participating in historic, widespread protests over food shortages and power outages amid a severe economic crisis.