ITALY

The last political elections in March 2018 highlighted the issues connected to mi-gration and the flows of political refugees, making them central issues in the polit-ical agenda and in the public opinion. The electoral consensus with League North (Lega Nord) and its leader Matteo Salvini has increased across 2018 following an anti-migration rhetoric. Within this discursive frame, the issues of Islam and Mus-lim communities have drawn particular attention through the stereotype of their incompatibility with Christian and Western cultures, and claims that Islam is a re-ligion based on terrorism. The xenophobic and anti-Islam climate fostered by the traditional political players from the right wing, Lega Nord and Fratelli d’Italia, by the extreme-right movements (Casa Pound and Forza Nuova), and by the most con-servative branches of the mass media, such as Il Giornale, has caused very negative effects on a social level, legitimising racist behaviours. Physical and verbal attacks on immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and Muslim citizens have increased in the north and south of Italy, leading to dramatic events such as the wounding by gun-shot of six migrants from Nigeria in Macerata on 3 February and the murder of a Senegalese street seller, Idy Diene (54), in Florence on 5 March. Moreover, as out-lined by research (see Vox Diritti), the hate speech towards Muslim communities has increased, reflecting the birth of a widespread hostility in Italian society towards cultural diversity. The response of civil society, the democratic associations, and an important part of the Catholic world has definitely been consistent, but it appears to be ineffective in terms of opposing this drift. The collaboration between these realities and Muslim NGO is becoming more and more urgent in order to contain the situation that is jeopardising the democratic structures and the future of civil coexistence in Italy.