Distribute Sinovac Vaccine Hoax, AS Arrested By Police

JAKARTA - The West Kalimantan Regional Police arrested a man with the initials AS (30) who was suspected of spreading false news (hoax) related to the sinovac vaccine, which said that the side effects of the vaccine could lead to the emergence of other diseases.

The Director of Special Criminal Investigation of the West Kalimantan Regional Police, Grand Commissioner Juda Nusa Putra said that the disclosure began with the West Kalimantan Police's cyber patrol team finding a Facebook account that posted hoaxes in the Pontianak Information (PI) community group.

"On Monday, January 25, 2021, the Cyber Patrol team from Subdit V of the West Kalimantan Regional Police of the Director of Special Criminal Investigation (Ditreskrimsus) found a Facebook account on behalf of AS, which wrote a comment containing hoax news about giving the COVID-19 vaccine," he said in Pontianak, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, January 27.

In his comments, AS said, "Beware it is not a vaccine but a virus that will destroy the Indonesian people, first being injected, it does not appear to directly affect the virus. Later, after 4 or 6 months, it will be seen that when you have been injected, a disease will arise due to the injection virus from the vaccine. Be careful don't get fooled, people should be careful before being injected, think as far as possible, it's better not to, we are already healthy why being injected, don't be afraid of corona".

Juda continued, by finding the post his team immediately carried out a series of investigations about the account and its whereabouts. On the same day, the facebook account holder was immediately secured.

The evidence that was secured by the officers was a mobile phone that the perpetrator used when posting hoax comments and a screen capture of the perpetrator's Facebook account post.

"Currently the perpetrator is still being investigated by officers from the West Kalimantan Police Subdit Cyber. We (West Kalimantan Region Police) keep reminding the public to be wise in social media and not easily influenced by information with unclear sources," he said.

The perpetrator can be accused of Article 45A paragraph (1) Jo article 28 paragraph (1) of Law Number 19 of 2016 concerning amendments to Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Information and Electronic Transactions and/or article 14 paragraph (2) of Law Number 1 of 1946 concerning Criminal Law Regulations, he said.