Rita Bernardini

Rita Bernardini (born 27 December 1952) is an Italian politician and nonviolent activist. A longtime member of the Radical Party of Marco Pannella, she served twice as national secretary of the Italian Radicals and was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013. Before entering parliament she spent two decades as a Radical activist, working at Radio Radicale and taking part in the referendum campaigns and acts of civil disobedience of the 1990s. She is the president of Hands Off Cain, a Radical association campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty and for humane prison conditions, and is known for her repeated hunger strikes against prison overcrowding in Italy.