Emma Bonino, Member of the Italian parliament, Secretary to the Presidency of the House of Representatives. EU Commissioner for Consumers' Policy, deputy to the European Community Host Organization (ECHO).
Born in Bra (Cuneo) on March 9, 1948; she graduated from the University of Milan with a degree in Foreign Languages in 1972.
After some political experience as a student, in 1975, together with Adele Faccio, she founded the CISA (Centro Informazione, Sterilizzazione e Aborto - Information Center for Sterilization and Abortion). Intended as a supportive initiative to the radical campaign that in a few years would win the battle for the legalization of abortion, this structure would provide medical assistance to women as a form "civil disobidience". Due to this activity, in June 1975 she was arrested, along with Adele Faccio and others.
Now leader of the Radical Party, in June 1976 she was elected to the Italian House of Representatives, where she promoted several initiatives to legalize abortion and decriminalize drugs.
In 1978 she was one of the most active supporters of the signatures' collection campaign (promoted by the Radicals) to put the referendum against nuclear activities on the ballot. Although the Constitutional Court dismissed this proposal, the initiative was able to stop nuclear activities in Italy anyway. A second referendum, promoted by the Radicals after Chernobyl, recieved a large popular consent.
In 1979, Emma Bonino was elected again to the Italian House and for the first time to the European Parliament: in August she attended the World Meeting on Food and then the Paris Conference for Undeveloped Countries. Together with Marco Pannella, she launched the Campaign against the massacre by hunger in the world, the "Holocaust of our times".
In 1981, as a founding member of the "Food and Disarmement International" association, she patronized the "Manifesto of Nobel Prize Winners" initiative; supported by more than 100 signatures, it was aimed to obtain from National Parliaments new regulations and larger budget to save millions of people in Third and Fourth Worlds from the tragedy of undervelopment.
She also contributed to the organization of conferences and meetings for the International Counsel of the "Parlamentarians Global Action" group. Quite often, these initiatives involved direct and nonviolent actions such as fasting and hunger strikes.
In July 1981 she became President of the Radical Group at the Italian Parliament.
Re-elected at the House in 1983, she soon resigned to hardly work for the organization of the "Poor people do not eat theories" conference (Rome, Easter1984).
In March 1985, due to the Campaign to end hunger worldwide, she was able to introduce into the Italian Parliament a bill (supported by members of every party) to set apart US $1 billion to "Save, by the next 18 months, how many possible human beings otherwise condemned to die of hunger". Finally, public opinion was sensitive to this issue, until then voluntarly ignored also by politicians.
In May 1985 she succeded to the French Jean Fabre as General Secretary of the "Food and Disarmement International" association.
In 1986, once again member of the Parliament, she launched several International initiatives to protect human, civil and political rights - such as the campaign for the application of the Helsinki Treaty to those Jewish Russian ("refuznik") who could not leave USSR. Along with activists from several countries, she organized public rallies in many European capitals and in Jerusalem; she was arrested in Varsavia and Praga.
Under the pressure of events in the former-Yugoslavia, she worked for the International acknowledgment of the Republic of Croazia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Kossovo.
Later, while the Radical Party was re-organizing itself as a "Transnational" Party, the interest of Emma Bonino was focused on the establishment of the "International Parlamentarian League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty Worldwide."
After being President of the Transnational Radical Party for two years, in the second session of its 36· Congress (February 1993) she was elected Secretary of the Party, fully assuming this position at the Party General Counsel in Sofia (July 1993).
Member of the Italian Parliament in 1992 and in 1994, in both terms she was named Secretary of the Presidency of the House.
In the 24a Session of the UN General Assembly, she was elected spokesperson of the Italian Government on the issue of a Permanent Penal Court for Crimes against Humanity. Within this chapter, Italy has also introduced the proposal for a Resolution to stop executions by 2000, promoted by the Radical Party along with its federated "Hands Off Cain" association.
On October 25 1994, Emma Bonino spoke at the VI Commission of the UN.
