Cuba: freelance journalist Roberto Quinones released after one year in prison
View of Havana, Cuba, September 1, 2020 (illustration) Alexandre Meneghini / Reuters
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3 min
After a year of imprisonment for "resistance and disobedience", Roberto Quinones, independent Cuban journalist, was released from prison on Friday September 4th.
While several Cuban and international NGOs had launched a major campaign to demand the release of this political prisoner, the Cuban authorities decided to release him.
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Thin and tired, Roberto Quiñones appears in a video at his home explaining that he has just been released from prison.
“
It has been a difficult year, but I don't regret anything I did,
” he says.
This lawyer and independent journalist for the
Cubanet
news
portal
, censored on the island, was sentenced in August 2019 for "resistance and disobedience" during his arrest, while covering the trial of a couple of pastors on trial for wanting to educate their children at home.
Before being released, Roberto Quiñones says he received threats from a state security officer.
"
He claimed to convince me to give up my activity as a freelance journalist
," he says.
And he told me that my son, Roberto José, who lives in the United States, could never come to Cuba again, because during my imprisonment, he published information about my situation.
"
Roberto Quiñones, recently liberated from an año de injusta prisión, reveals the deplorable and preoccupying condiciones en las que viven los reclusos in the Provincial Prison of Guantánamo.
#Cuba pic.twitter.com/8XYpoh1yus
Cubanet 🇨🇺 (@CubanetNoticias) September 5, 2020
Very difficult detention conditions in Cuba
Cuba is 171st out of 180 in the world press freedom ranking compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
But despite the threats, the independent journalist will continue to inform, starting with the situation in Cuban prisons.
“
I left a prison with a lot of deficiencies, where the officers, instead of relieving the pain of the inmates, accentuated it
,” he says.
The food is terrible.
And the health situation is deplorable, because the doctors have no medicine.
"
During his prison sentence, which he considers unjust, Roberto Quiñones had received the support of the American government and many NGOs, such as Amnesty International.
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