A video circulating on social media around the world shows American doctor Betsy Eads falsely claiming that Malaysia executed a doctor for “killing a patient” with a covid-19 vaccine. Malaysia imposed a moratorium on executions when the government announced it would abolish the death penalty in 2018, years before the Covid-19 vaccine was released. A human rights group and a lawyer said no executions had been carried out in Malaysia since 2018.
“Nuremberg has already started (globally),” read a Malay-language Facebook post shared on November 15.
It claims that a Malaysian doctor was “sentenced to death” for “intentional homicide by injection of cv19 biological weapons”.
The video shows American doctor Betsy Eads, who previously spread misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine, speaking to the Conservative Business Journal Podcast.
“It has come to my attention that in Malaysia, the first doctor was executed under the Nuremberg Code for administering the bioweapons vaccine and killing a patient,” she says.
Malay text superimposed on the footage reads “Malaysian Specialist Physician” and “Death penalty under Nuremberg”.
Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on January 10, 2023
The Nuremberg Code is a set of ethical principles for human experimentation, such as voluntary consent and avoiding unnecessary suffering.
The code was established after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, including doctors indicted for their role in conducting medical experiments on concentration camp inmates.
AFP has debunked a wave of misinformation about the Nuremberg Code, including false claims that vaccines violate the principles of the code.
The video attracted more than 8,000 views on similar posts on Telegram, TikTok and the Russian platform VK, and was circulated on Facebook in several countries, including Australia, South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom.
No executions since 2018
Malaysia announced it would abolish the death penalty in October 2018, when it placed a moratorium on executions.
In June 2022, the government said it had agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty, which is imposed for 11 crimes, including murder, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking.
Malaysian Justice Minister Azalina Othman Said announced in December that the government would introduce an invoice on the abolition of the mandatory death penalty in February 2023.
“The moratorium for death row inmates is still in place until all amendments to the bill are implemented,” it said in a statement. declaration.
An Amnesty International representative told AFP that while Malaysian courts continue to hand down death sentences, there have been no executions since the 2018 moratorium was announced.
chew dobbyMalaysian human rights lawyer and executive coordinator of the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, also told AFP that there had been no executions in the country since 2018.
The last reported execution was in 2018, Chew said, referring to a report by the Malaysian human rights organization SUARAM.
The Malaysian authorities did not publicly name the person who was executed.
According to the Federal Court of Malaysia website, the death sentences issued in 2022 related to cases that started years before the country implemented its covid-19 vaccination program in February 2021.
No vaccine deaths
As of January 16, 2023, Malaysia had administered more than 72.6 million doses of covid-19 vaccines, with around 84% of the population receiving at least two injections.
There was not deaths “directly linked to the administered vaccine,” the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) said in its latest report with information from September 20, 2022.
AFP found no credible reports that Malaysia executed a doctor for killing a patient with a Covid-19 vaccine.
Health authorities say that the covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective and that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks.
AFP has previously debunked US cardiologist Peter McCullough’s misleading claims about Malaysia’s vaccination programme.