Amid accusations of injustice and mistreatment, one claim emerged that drew the attention of English-language accounts known for pushing anti-vaccine narratives.

Newsweek Fact Check looked into the origins of the claim, and whether it has any factual basis.

The Claim

A tweet by the account @GraduatedBen, published on January 11, 20223, stated: “Horrible news out of Brazil. Arrested protestors are being forcibly injected with the Covid shots against their will.”

The post received nearly 1.5 million views, along with more than 16,000 interactions including 10,900 likes.

While it did not include a source for the controversial claim, a follow-up post from the author linked to an article by a Brazilian outlet.

Despite the tenuous basis for the claim, many anti-vaccine accounts picked it up, often intertwining it with existing conspiracy theory narratives about vaccines and the “New World Order”.

“Fast forward a year, and we have a rigged election, anti-vaccine protesters forcefully jabbed against their will, and now reports of an internet shutdown to silence criticism. The New World Order is moving fast. Get ready,” one user wrote in a post with 14,500 views.

“Brazilian arrested protesters were FORCED to be vaccinated today. Things in Brazil escalated quickly! 11 days to have a practical dictatorship endorsed by the globalists, the mainstream media, the US gov and CIA, the UN, the EU and the big tech companies!” another Twitter user posted.

The Facts

About 1,500 people (and as many as 2,000 according to some reports) have been detained in Brazil after supporters of Bolsonaro stormed Congress, the presidential palace, and the Supreme Court in the capital Brasília.

Several top officials have also been on the receiving end of arrest warrants, including the former commander of the military police and Brasília’s former public security chief Anderson Torres, according to reports, including one by Reuters.

Justice Minister Flavio Dino also said some 40 buses that had been used to transport protesters to the capital have since been seized.

Of the roughly 1,500 people arrested and held at a Brasilia police academy after the riot, officials said that nearly 600 have been taken to other facilities, while 520 have already been released, according to the BBC, citing local reports.

But even as most of the country’s population condemned the violence and demanded those behind it be punished, some were sympathetic to the rioters and accused the authorities of mistreating the detainees.

Some of the concerns about the conditions in which hundreds of the rioters are being kept appear to be justified, per reports from the Brazilian media, but that conversation has also attracted speculative, misleading, and false claims.

The tweet in question appears to be among those. The article cited by the claim does not appear to support it, and official statements also pour cold water over the “forced vaccination” narrative.

Before digging into the provenance of the story, it is worth pointing out that the terminology of the post is itself rather misleading: “Covid shots” could be taken to mean “injected with the Covid virus,” which is patently false.

Going with the interpretation that the phrase refers to the COVID-19 vaccine, there is also little evidence that it is true.

The original article in the O Estadão publication (archived here), which appears to be the sole primary source, later cited by other Portuguese-language outlets, was either misinterpreted or misquoted by the tweet’s author.

The article focuses on the conditions within the cells in which the rioters are being held, claiming among other things that: “The beds are made of concrete, without any artifacts that can be removed,” and that every day they “receive four meals a day, including breakfast, lunch, afternoon coffee and dinner.”

The paragraph that is likely behind the vaccination claims follows, referring to the arrested as “golpistas,” which literally translates as “scammers,” according to Google.

“Upon arriving in prison, the ‘golpistas’ [rioters] went through a medical screening process. A task force was set up to carry out tests on people, vaccinate them, in cases where they needed to complete their vaccination, and take note of those who have some type of comorbidity or take some regulated medication. Everyone will be entitled to ‘sunbathe’ once a day.”

The article then goes on to explain how the trial hearings, due to the sheer number of detainees, will be held virtually, using the digital infrastructure set in place during the COVID pandemic. It contains no other mentions of COVID or vaccinations.

The O Estadão report appears to be an exclusive, with the article stating simply “O Estadão got details about the screening process for the accused,” without detailing how it gained this information.

Newsweek could not immediately assess the reliability of the publication or find any separate Portuguese-language reporting corroborating the details presented by O Estadao.

In fact, other reports, such as by Brazil’s Estado de Minas newspaper, and including those also citing O Estadão, provide additional context, stating that 700 of the 1,200 detained were vaccinated, though it is not clear whether that was due to vaccine shortages, prior vaccinations, refusals, or other reasons.

But regardless of its sourcing, the article does not appear to describe “forced” injections that @GraduatedBen cites.

Brazil’s national COVID Vaccination Plan, which was implemented under the Bolsonaro administration, explicitly prioritizes people deprived of liberty (and prison staff), noting they are high-risk due to conditions of detention and poor healthcare services in prison.

Yet initial vaccination efforts were hampered not by refusals, but rather by vaccine shortages and logistical issues.

According to a 2021 report by the Penal Reform International (PRI) and Harm Reduction International (HRI), as of May 2021 only 1,000 vaccine doses were administered in the penal system with a population of more than 750,000 inmates.

But despite various obstacles, including Bolsonaro’s own well-publicized vaccine skepticism, Brazil’s immunization drive has been extremely effective, helped by the Brazilian population’s historically strong level of trust in government institutions.

And while that doesn’t mean that anti-vaccine sentiments are entirely foreign to Brazil’s society and, namely, its prison population, official statements appear to dampen the “forced vaccination” narratives.

Comments from Brazilian government agencies indicate that those opposed to vaccination would be able to opt out.

“The National Secretariat for Penitentiary Policies of Brazil informs that, as in the entire national territory, vaccination in the Brazilian prison system is not mandatory,” DEPEN, the National Prison Department of Brazil, told Newsweek in an email, noting that the “management of local prison systems is the responsibility of each state in the federation.”

“Based on information from the Secretariat of Penitentiary Administration of the Federal District, the prisoners were tested for COVID-19, with their refusals being respected by the authorities,” it added.

It referred Newsweek to the state/district prison administration body for more information. The Brasilia state prison body, Secretariat of Penitentiary Administration of the Federal District (Seape-DF), has not yet responded to Newsweek’s request for comment.

But Seape-DF affirmed, in comments to other publications, including Gazeta de Povo and Correio Braziliense, that COVID vaccination is not mandatory, and is subject to inmates’ individual wishes.

“The custodian is offered the possibility of immunization, being offered, among others, vaccination against the Coronavirus, with the option of receiving it,” it quoted the authorities as informing the newspaper, according to a Google translation.

It added that the newly-detained would also undergo a medical evaluation, including blood pressure tests, as well as those for diabetes, COVID-19, tuberculosis, HIV, syphilis, and other medical problems.

The Ruling

Misleading Material.

There is no reliable evidence to support claims that prisoners were forcibly given “Covid shots.”

The article, misleadingly referenced by the tweet’s author as the source, merely notes that vaccines were administered “where needed,” and makes no mention of “forcible injections.”

Furthermore, Brazilian officials have refuted the claim in comments to Newsweek and elsewhere, insisting that COVID vaccinations were indeed offered to the prisoners, but on a voluntary basis.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK