GLA Adds Family Statement, Prison Statistics to IACHR Plea for Quiñones

Late on Friday, May 15, 2020, the Global Liberty Alliance submitted additional information to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in support of the GLA’s April 29 application for precautionary measures on behalf of Roberto de Jesús Quiñones Haces, an independent journalist and lawyer unlawfully imprisoned in Cuba. 

The information included a May 14, 2020 video statement, in which Dr. Quiñones’s son urged Luis Almagro and the IACHR to issue precautionary measures for his father. 

The young Quiñones expressed concern for his father’s worsening health, as well as solidarity with the work of so many organizations on behalf of his father and of all Cuban journalists. 

According to the Cuban state television program “Hacemos Cuba” (of the Sistema Informativo de la Televisión Cubana y Canal Caribe) (see below image), over 6,000 Cuban prisoners were given early parole in March and April 2020, in consideration of the COVID-19 crisis. In the unlikely event that this official statistic is accurate, GLA argued, it is time for a nonviolent, at-risk older prisoner like Roberto Quiñones to be released.