Vice-President of Italian Senate & 150 others on Hunger & Thirst Strike in Italian TV offices

international | politics / elections | news report Thursday June 04, 2009 22:29 by prurience

Today Emma Bonino vice-president of the Italian Senate (since May 8th), former European Union commissioner for humanitarian affairs & currently leader of the "Italian radical party" went on hunger and thirst strike last night in the main offices of the state TV RAI to protest
(1) the unfair allottment of state media time to the electoral parties
(2) the utter farce which has been the EU elections in Italy.

She's not Noemi, she's not a virgin, & she's on thirst strike with 72 hours to go before kidney collapse in Italian state TV's offices.

She has now been joined by 150 other people. Thirst strike may cause irreversible organ damage by the time people go out to vote for Mr Berlusconi as "papi" or "devil".

I admit this text has a long title but it follows on from even longer stories of trivialisation and manipulation the recent depths of which this author has outlined in two other stories which can be read by clicking on the links above right on this page.

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excerpts from various European press coverages :-

"In the last days of Italy's European election campaign, where gossip and scandal have triumphed over substance, Emma Bonino, former European Union commissioner for humanitarian affairs, has gone on hunger strike in the studios of Rai, the state broadcaster.
"In Italy nobody knows what they are voting for, what is the European parliament, who is standing or on what platform," a hoarse Ms Bonino told the Financial Times yesterday, after 36 hours without food or drink. Ms Bonino, 61, an opposition senator in the Italian parliament who heads her small Radical party list for the European elections, is demanding that Rai take action to redress unbalanced political coverage as exposed by Agcom, an official watchdog. Ms Bonino and fellow deputy Marco Beltrandi shocked Rai by refusing to leave its Saxa Rubra studios after a recording on Tuesday. Since then they have been joined by more than 70 supporters on hunger strike at Rai's main Rome headquarters. Their protests so far have received only modest media coverage, yet go to the heart of what many observers see as a structural flaw in Italian politics. Perpetuating a relic of the cold war era, the main ruling and opposition parties divide up key institutional posts, including Rai, while Silvio Berlusconi, billionaire centre-right prime minister, continues to exert influence over his own media empire. For much of the past month, airwaves and news pages have been filled by emerging details of the friendship between Mr Berlusconi, 72, and Noemi Letizia, an aspiring model 54 years his junior who calls him "daddy". Veronica Lario, the prime minister's wife, is seeking a divorce. Giorgio Napolitano, head of state, took the unusual step of speaking out on national day this week, urging politicians to "moderate" their voices in the interests of the country.

The Radicals stressed that Ms Bonino was not simply demanding that Rai give more coverage to the Radicals and other small parties, but was upholding the principle that the state broadcaster comply with the law.

"Italians are getting too used to a context in which democracy is an option," said Filippo di Robilant, Radical party spokesman.

The main opposition Democratic party criticised impartial television coverage of the election campaign but its statement focused on Mr Berlusconi's own channels rather than Rai, and did not mention Ms Bonino. Her supporters said this was further evidence of the Democrats' quiet complicity on some issues with the ruling party. Mr Berlusconi predicts that his People of Liberty, backed by the allied Northern League, will take over 50 per cent of this weekend's vote. The Radicals and other small parties risk winning no seats if they do not rise above a 4 per cent threshold.

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Emma Bonino : 'ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 'TOTALLY UNDEMOCRATIC'

"There is no rule of law in Italy under Berlusconi, former European commissioner and current vice-president of the Italian Senate Emma Bonino told EurActiv from Rome in a telephone interview yesterday (3 June). I heard you are on hunger strike in Rome, a move covered by public television channel RAI. Please explain your protest. The question is that we think that this electoral campaign in Italy is totally undemocratic. Because the basic rule of any kind of democracy says that citizens should know in order to make choices. But here, this principle is simply inexistent. Not only there is no debate on Europe, but if you ask people on the street 'What are you voting for?', I think very few would answer – we vote for the European Parliament. And if you ask them, 'What are the parties that are campaigning, and for what projects of Europe?', I think the answer would be totally blank.

This is some sort of caricature of an electoral campaign, and particularly of a democratic electoral campaign,and in fact, we got, two weeks ago, deliberation by the authority, the organism, which is supposed to control the state TV, and this authority said that the right to know in order to choose is simply non-existent. And the authority ordered some sort of re-equilibrium of the political debate. But nothing happened. So, four days ahead of the elections, we decided to move to non-violent actions, we are on hunger strike, occupying RAI and waiting for an answer. The authority is meeting again and we wait for the result.

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information on Emma Bonino & the "Radical Party" :- http://www.emmabonino.it/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Bonino