CLAIM
A video of a large crowd of people standing on a road with umbrellas under heavy rain and singing the extremely popular ‘Bella Ciao’ has been widely shared on social media with the claim that it shows Italians bidding goodbye to the world. The message with the video claims that they are doing this because they have been unable to control the spread of COVID-19 in their country.
The message reads: “In itly they couldn't control the virus so the people of italy is saying goodbye to the world outside the Majid of Milan . This is really Heart Breaking
Stand With Italy. Let's Pray Help From Allah. I AM CRYING we stand with Italy let’s pray help from Allah (sic).”
The post had 6.1k views at the time this story was written. An archived version of the post can be seen here.
Many people shared the video on Facebook with the same claim.
The video was also uploaded on YouTube with the same claim and had over 8,000 views.
It was also shared on Twitter.
An archived version can be seen here.
TRUE OR FALSE?
While the video has not been altered in any way and is in fact from Italy, it dates to November 2019 and has nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic. It is actually from an anti-fascist protest held in Italy.
WHAT WE FOUND
We broke down the video into keyframes and conducted a reverse search on the individual frames. One of those led us to an article by an Italian news portal called Quotidiano which had reported on the incident. According to the article, dated to 19 November 2019, the video showed the ‘Sardines’ in Italy’s Modena singing ‘Bella Ciao’.
On running a search on Google with the keywords ‘sardines in Italy modena bella ciao’, we came across the same video, uploaded by Italian newspaper La Repubblica on YouTube.
According to the caption of the video, approximately seven thousand people crammed into Modena’s Piazza Grande for the second protest held by the anti-Salvini ‘Sardines’, where everyone sang ‘Bella Ciao’.
‘Bella Ciao’ is a song which dates back to World War II, written by anti-fascists who were opposing Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
On searching some more, we came across an article by The Guardian, which also stated the same, explaining that the “sardines” movement was against the politics of Italy’s far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, “in which opponents attempt to beat the numbers he draws to his rallies.”
The article by The Guardian also included an Instagram post by a verified Instagram handle called fanpage.it, which also placed the incident in Modena in November 2019.
According to The Indian Express, the protest at Modena was the second one after a similar one at Bologna earlier which saw a crowd of 12,000 people.
Therefore, the viral video is that of a political protest against an Italian leader and has nothing to do with coronavirus.
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