By Hazel Gandhi
An old photo of Brazil's Q-Anon Shaman is being shared alongside protestors who stormed the country's Supreme Court and other key government buildings in Brasilia on Sunday. BOOM found that the photo of the Shaman is from 2021, and was taken in Sao Paulo, not Brasilia.
At 6:30 pm local time on January 8, 2023, supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Brazilian Congress in an event that was immediately compared to the 2021 Capitol riots in the US. Amid viral photos and videos of the incident, the photo of a Q-Anon Shaman, similar to the one that appeared in the Capitol riots is going viral online.
Jacob Chansely, the first self-proclaimed Q-Anon Shaman first appeared in the United States Capitol siege and quickly became one of the most recognisable faces of the riots. Chansely showed up dressed in a bearskin headgear with huge horns and a United States flag painted on his face. A believer in the Q-Anon conspiracy theory, he compared himself to Mahatma Gandhi as he participated in a crowd that tried to hinder Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election following Trump's loss.
The 34-year-old is currently sentenced to 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to his role in the siege.
Q-Anon is a conspiracy theory peddled by various right-wing activists and citizens of the US who believe that Donald Trump was part of an essential fight against Satan-worshipping pedophiles in the highest ranks of politics, business, and media in the country.
Amid this, the photo of a copycat Shaman in Brazil is going viral online as recent. The photo, shared by several users on Twitter, is circulating with different captions. Among them, one reads, "Who wore it better? #brazil #insurrection"
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
Click here to view.
The post is also circulating on Facebook.
Click here to view.
FACT-CHECK
A reverse image search on Google led us to a tweet by Ian Bremmer, founder of the political consultancy firm, Eurasia group based in New York City. Bremmer's tweet from September 2021 contains the same viral photo of the Q-Anon Shaman.
Brazilian news agency Brasil de Fato also shared the photo on September 7. The photo is taken in Sao Paulo by photographer Guilherme Gandolfi
The photo was shared after supporters of Bolsonaro had marched on the Supreme Court in the Brasilia, the country's capital on Brazil's national day. The rally took place amid Bolsonaro's calls to launch a "counter coup" against the Supreme Court that had previously struck down his government's reforms that planned to rewrite electoral rules, believing that the election process was a "farce".
Many believe that Bolsonaro made these baseless accusations in fear of losing the 2022 elections to leftist rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula did end up winning in October 2022, and in December, Bolsonaro flew to the US while several investigations against him from his time in office were still underway. He continues to challenge the authenticity of the election-- without any substantial evidence-- from Florida, where he is currently residing.
The appearance of the Q-Anon Shaman, also known as the Q Shaman, on September 7, 2021 was shared by several other journalists and users on social media, confirming that the photo is not from the recent insurrections at the Brazilian Supreme Court.
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