Brazilian police call for Bolsonaro to be prosecuted for misinformation about COVID-19

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

The police report, accessed by the Brazilian newspaper ‘O Globo’, considers that Bolsonaro’s statements, broadcast on video in June 2021, about an alleged link 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, by citing–as false information–that victims of the Spanish flu died more from wearing masks than from the flu. In this sense, the PF has indicated that this action can be considered as “incitement to crime”.

“This ‘incentive’ to non-compliance with 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 has detailed in the partial report.

Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Barbosa Cid, who serves as an aide to the Presidency, produced this false information, which was knowingly disseminated by the president.

“(Bolsonaro) disseminated, freely, voluntarily and consciously, information that did not correspond to the original text of its source, potentially generating an alarm of non-existent danger to viewers, in addition to encouraging them to breach health regulations,” reads the text.