“After seeing the video of the murder of George Floyd, we started calling each other and we decided not to remain silent,” says law student Anass Hanafi. In May, he helped set up the Instagram account @imstillalive – it quickly gained traction from Italian social media users and now has more than 6,000 followers.
Instagram has made anti-racist organising more globalised and connected than ever, and this activism has flourished under COVID-19. New and second-generation immigrants in Italy are taking to Instagram to post race-related content expressing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and protesting against their own domestic cases of racism.
“The uncertain situation we were in during the coronavirus lockdown was not helping,” adds law student and human rights activist Victoria Oluboyo, 25, who co-founded @imstillalive. Social distancing, masks and strict rules about public behaviour made large protests difficult, and that’s why they decided to launch this online campaign.
