Emma Bonino, Italian Abortion and Divorce Rights Leader, Dies at 78
Her party said the longtime civil rights advocate and former minister died after years of health problems and a recent respiratory crisis.
- On Friday, prominent Italian rights campaigner and +Europa founder Emma Bonino died at age 78, her party announced. She had been hospitalized in Rome earlier in the week for a respiratory crisis.
- Bonino rose to prominence in the 1970s by founding the Centre for Information, Sterilisation and Abortion , an act of civil disobedience that fueled the 1978 legalization campaign. She joined the Radical Party early in her career.
- As a European Commissioner from 1994 to 1999, Bonino managed humanitarian aid and fisheries policy while advocating for human rights in Afghanistan and the Balkans. In 1997, Taliban militia briefly detained her during a visit to photograph a women's hospital.
- Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni paid tribute to Bonino's role in public life, saying their "backgrounds and perspectives differed, that never prevented me from acknowledging her significance." Pope Francis made an unusual home visit to her in November 2024.
- Bonino maintained a lifelong commitment to defending civil rights, telling state broadcaster Rai in 2024, "I have been fighting for rights all my life, warning people to defend them, because they don't last forever." Her legacy shaped Italian political history across five decades.
250 Articles
250 Articles
Diario de Cádiz
Europa SurThe death of Emma Bonino hurts. It was small, but it honored her name of Germanic origin: whole, universal, a powerful force. Her disappearance causes nostalgia, because Europe is no longer what it was. But the panegyrists towards the former European commissioner and former Italian minister raise melancholy for what the EU is not. The rise of nationalist populisms goes in the opposite direction to what the Italian Radical Party represented, whic…
Italian activist Emma Bonino dies at age 78
A grief in European politics after the death of Emma Bonino, one of the important figures of Italian politics and of European construction. The former European Commissioner and Foreign Minister of Italy died at the age of 78. The announcement was made on Friday of the political formation that led, +Europe.
Italian political history, former Foreign Minister and European Commissioner, Emma Bonino stood out in the defense of human rights, women's rights and civil liberties, having been one of the main voices in the fight for the legalization of abortion in Italy.
Feminist, human rights defender, was Member, MEP, canciler and European Commissioner; weighs in Italy and the EU
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