A note released on Wednesday on the website of the Vatican News paper, the news portal of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, says that it is a “gradual but broad release, in the framework of a mediation with the Catholic Church that has been developing for years.”

The report cites a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean nation, which emphasizes the “close and fluid relations” of the Cuban government with the Vatican.

“As in the past, His Holiness has been informed about processes of review and release of persons deprived of liberty, a practice that is common in our justice system and that has characterized the humanitarian trajectory of the Revolution,” the document issued by the Foreign Ministry of that country adds.

In early January, Vatican News reports, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel sent a letter to Pope Francis, “informing him of the decision to grant freedom to 553 people sanctioned for various crimes.”

The measure was decided, according to the statement, “on the basis of a careful analysis based on the different modalities contemplated by the law, and as part of the just and humane nature of the penal and penitentiary systems in Cuba.”

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