Brazil police seek to prosecute Bolsonaro for covid misinformation

The Federal Police (PF) of Brazil has requested authorization from the Supreme Court to prosecute the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, for alleged crimes of misinformation about the coronavirus.

The police report, to which the Brazilian newspaper ‘O Globo’ has had access, considers that Bolsonaro’s statements, broadcast on video in June 2021, about an alleged relationship between the COVID-19 vaccine and the risk of contracting HIV could be classified as a misdemeanor of “causing alarm to third parties, announcing non-existent danger”.

In addition, Bolsonaro discouraged the use of masks, citing — as false information — that more victims of the Spanish flu died from wearing masks than from the flu. In this sense, the PF has indicated that this action can be considered an “incitement to crime”.

“This ‘incentive’ to breach a mandatory health measure is subsumed in the conduct described in article 286 of the Penal Code, which typifies the criminal type of incitement to crime,” the police force detailed in the partial report. Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Barbosa Cid, who works as an assistant to the Presidency, produced the false information, which was knowingly spread by the president.”(Bolsonaro) freely, voluntarily and consciously disseminated information that did not correspond to the original text of its source, potentially generating an alarm of non-existent danger for viewers, in addition to encouraging them to violate health regulations,” reads the text.