Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro City Hall to appeal court ruling that prohibits introduction of a two-tier society via vaccination passports

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Rio de Janeiro city hall will appeal against a court decision that suspends the enforcement of a decree by Rio de Janeiro’s capital to require proof of immunization of Covid-19 – the so-called “vaccination passport” – in specific environments in the city.

The information came from the Health Secretary of Rio de Janeiro, Daniel Soranz, in an interview this Thursday (30) on TV Globo’s “Bom dia Rio”.

According to Soranz, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro should file an appeal in the coming days against the decision. “A decision like this is regrettable. It doesn’t take [into consideration] the clinical issue,” he pointed out.

The secretary informed that, until there is a decision on the appeal to be sent to Justice by the attorney general’s office, the “vaccination passport” will not be required in the places delimited in a decree by the city hall.

Soranz reinforced the importance of immunization against the disease in the city, which he claims was the main reason for the retreat in the levels of deaths and cases of Covid-19 compared to what was observed at the beginning of 2021.

Soranz follows the narrative of the pharmaceutical lobby, which claims that vaccination is the only way to control the Delta variant, say critics who add that this claim makes Pharma companies rich beyond imagination but does not consider the reality in the countries with the highest vaccination rate, such as Israel, Iceland, Gibraltar, Singapore, and others.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis e.g. said a couple of weeks ago that mandates and vaccination passes appear to have less to do with medical issues than government power and control. He called their imposition in the United States “very intrusive, and I think illegal.”

AGAINST HEALTH DICTATORSHIP

On Wednesday (29), Judge Paulo Rangel, from the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro (TJ-RJ), suspended the requirement of presenting the vaccination passport for the circulation of people in the city. In a preliminary injunction, the decision was made based on a request made by a resident of the city.

Still, the magistrate decided to extend the habeas corpus to the general population and not only to the plaintiff. In the decision, he determined that the plaintiff, Rio’s City Hall, Military Police, Civil Police, Municipal Guard, Federal Police, and the Military Commander of the East should be urgently notified so that compliance with the measure is guaranteed.

According to Judge Paulo Rangel, the vaccine passport “divides society into two types: vaccinated and unvaccinated.” The magistrate also says it is hypocrisy “not to see that public transportation is crowded with people. The subway, ferries, and buses likewise.”

Rangel called it a “health dictatorship” and said that the vaccine card is an “act that stigmatizes people, creating a derogatory label and preventing them from freely moving through the streets, with a clear goal of social control.”

The judge also compared the vaccine passport to the marking of slaves and cattle in the past and even mentioned Hitler.