An Australian TV reporter’s shooting with a rubber bullet by US police has sparked the resharing of a false claim about protester injuries during anti-lockdown demonstrations in Melbourne in 2021.

The catch is the photos posted alongside the claim show injuries suffered by people in overseas protests that preceded the Melbourne demonstrations and were not related to Covid-19 restrictions.

An X post shared on June 11 said “the people who hid this now want your empathy”, apparently referring to police shooting Nine News correspondent Lauren Tomasi with a rubber bullet while she was recording a piece to camera at protests against immigration raids in LA days earlier.

“Press [heart emoji] if you have zero sympathy for the mass media,” the caption said.

These photos are from events in Argentina and the US, not Australia. Photo: X/AAP

The X post features a composite image showing three people displaying rubber bullet wounds — a man with back injuries, a woman showing a deep wound in her side, and another younger woman who had been hit in the forehead.

“Rubber bullets used on freedom protestors (sic) in Melbourne, Australia by the police,” overlay text says.

One reply to the post shared a screen grab of an X post by Tomasi in July 2021.

“I must say, these accused ‘protestors’ are very meek and mild in their handcuffs today. No screaming about fake news and fake viruses today, folks,” she wrote at the time.

The graphic in the main X post has also been shared on Facebook.

“While everyone is outraged by what happened to an Australian journalist, here’s what happened here in Australia to protesters who were actually peaceful and unarmed,” the caption says.

But a reverse image search reveals that none of the images show injuries suffered by protesters in Melbourne in September 2021, where police fired pepper balls and pellets to break up the crowd.

The first photo of the man with back injuries was taken after a protest in Argentina on December 22, 2015, according to an X post.

This photo was taken in 2015 during a protest in Argentina, not Melbourne. Photo: X/AAP

The claim that the photo showed a protester from Melbourne in 2021 was also false.

The photo was actually taken by an Associated Press photographer during a march by poultry company workers who blocked a highway leading to Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires on December 22, 2015.

The second image of the woman with a rubber bullet wound is from a US protest on August 21, 2014, according to an article in the Church Times.

The woman is Renita Lamkin, an African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor, who attended a protest against the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer on August 9, 2014.

The pastor said she was attempting to mediate between police and protesters when a rubber bullet struck her, HuffPost reported.

This post first appeared in 2020, before the Melbourne protests. Photo: X/AAP

The image of a young woman with a wound to her forehead is also from the US. It was posted on Twitter on May 30, 2020, more than a year before the Melbourne protests in September 2021.

The user @shannynsharyse’s caption said she had been hit by a rubber bullet while protesting.

Celebrity Kim Kardashian offered to pay for the woman’s medical bills after seeing the images, The US Sun reported, and it’s believed she was shot by police during a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis.

-AAP