Showing posts with label Marco Pannella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marco Pannella. Show all posts

26 December 2018

Piergiorgio Welby - euthanasia campaigner

Muscular dystrophy sufferer who fought for right to die


Piergiorgio Welby was kept alive by an artificial breathing mechanism for the last nine years of his life
Piergiorgio Welby was kept alive by an artificial breathing
mechanism for the last nine years of his life
The poet, painter and muscular dystrophy sufferer Piergiorgio Welby, whose wish to be given help to die after nine years being kept alive artificially sparked a huge legal, political and religious debate, was born on this day in 1945 in Rome.

Welby, the son of an AS Roma footballer with Scottish ancestry, developed MS when he was 17 years old.

Throughout the 1960s and 70s his lifestyle helped keep the disease under control. He lived as an artist and writer, following the hippie movement but also hunting and fishing. His use of recreational drugs dulled the symptoms of the disease and he was able to travel extensively in Europe.

During this period he met his future wife, Wilhelmine - later known as Mina - who was from Bolzano province in Trentino-Alto Adige but encountered Welby in Rome.

Welby decided in the 1980s to wean himself off drugs by embarking on methadone therapy, but the disease then progressed rapidly and he was soon paralysed from the waist down.  In 1997, he suffered severe respiratory problems and from that point onwards was dependent on a breathing tube.  As well as mechanical ventilation, he depended on artificial feeding.

It was at this point he began to write and talk - he had a voice synthesizer - about euthanasia and joined the Italian Radical Party, the political organisation closest to his views.  In time, though, he lost even the ability to control a computer mouse.

Euthanasia was and remains illegal in Italy, largely due to the strict opposition of the Catholic Church, and though a patient has a right to refuse treatment, a doctor is still required to make every attempt to keep the patient alive.

Up to 1,000 people attended Piergiorgio Welby's secular funeral in Piazza Don Bosco in the Tuscolano district
Up to 1,000 people attended Piergiorgio Welby's secular
funeral in Piazza Don Bosco in the Tuscolano district
In September 2006, Welby sparked the political debate that was eventually to bring matters to a head by dictating an open letter to the Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, which was shown on national television and reported extensively in the national press.

“I love life, Mr. President,” Welby wrote. “Life is the woman who loves you, the wind through your hair, the sun on your face, an evening stroll with a friend.

“Life is also a woman who leaves you, a rainy day, a friend who deceives you. I am neither melancholic nor manic-depressive. I find the idea of dying horrible. But what is left to me is no longer a life.”

Napolitano expressed his sympathy with Welby’s plight and invited politicians to debate the issue.

There were heated exchanges in the Italian parliament and political TV shows, around the political, ethical, religious and medical aspects of the case.

The Radical Party founder Marco Pannella said he was willing to turn off Welby’s life-support equipment himself as an "act of civil disobedience".

The outspoken Radical Party founder Marco Pannella was a supporter of Welby's cause
The outspoken Radical Party founder Marco
Pannella was a supporter of Welby's cause
Most Catholic politicians stood by the official position of the Catholic Church. Health Minister Livia Turco said that a parliamentary debate should focus more on improving palliative care rather than on euthanasia.

Welby’s right to refuse treatment under the Italian constitution and the code of conduct of Italian doctors was confirmed by a court ruling, but the doctor’s obligation to try to revive a patient in distress remained in place.

Eventually, an anaesthetist, Mario Riccio contacted the Radical Party and said he was prepared to switch off Welby’s life support, seeing no legal impediments. On December 20 he visited him in hospital in the presence of his wife Mina and daughter Carla and some supporters, including Marco Pannella, administered sedation and disconnected all the devices keeping him alive. He was pronounced dead 40 minutes later, at 11.40pm.

Welby’s death was announced the following morning by Pannella and a press conference followed later.

Luca Volonté, a Christian Democrat, called for Riccio to be arrested and charged with murder and had strong support in public opinion polls, but the the following March both the Ethical Committee of the Italian Medical Association and investigating magistrates declared Dr Riccio’s conduct to be lawful.

Controversially, the Catholic Church refused to allow Welby a religious funeral, declaring that his repeated public affirmations of his desire to end his own life were against Catholic doctrine.

Nonetheless, up to 1,000 people attended a secular funeral on December 24, 2006 in Piazza Don Bosco in the Tuscolano quarter of Rome, in front of the church that the family had chosen for the religious ceremony.

The town of San Candido is close to the Austrian border
The town of San Candido is close to the Austrian border
Travel tip:

Mina Welby’s home town of San Candido, also known as Innichen, is in northern Italy, close to the border with Austria. It’s part of the Tre Cime Natural Park, in the Dolomites. Among the main sights in the historical centre is the Romanesque-style Innichen Abbey, with a frescoed dome, and the DoloMythos Museum, exploring local natural history. The area has a strong military history, being home to the Druso and Cantatore barracks, the latter housing the 6th Alpine Regiment of the Italian Army.  A short distance outside San Candido is a sanctuary where the bodies of more than 200 soldiers killed in the First World War were buried.


The Aqua Marcia aqueduct passes through the Tuscolano quarter of Rome, along with several others
The Aqua Marcia aqueduct passes through the Tuscolano
quarter of Rome, along with several others
Travel tip:

Tuscolano is the 8th quartiere of Rome and is named after the Via Tuscolana that runs through it. It is one of the biggest districts of Rome, starting just outside the old city walls, near the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, and stretches all the way to the Via del Quadraro in the east. Its northern border is the Via Casilina and its southern border is the Via Appia Nuova. The Via del Mandrione is lined by huge walls that supported five of the ancient Roman aqueducts - the Aqua Marcia, Aqua Tepula, Aqua Iulia, Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus.


More reading:

Giorgio Napolitano - Italy's 11th President

Marco Pannella, the campaigner who helped shape modern Italy

Augusto Odone, inventor of 'Lorenzo's Oil'

Also on this day:

The Feast of Santo Stefano

1912: The birth of artist Renato Gattuso

1956: The birth of writer and journalist Beppe Severgnini


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2 May 2017

Marco Pannella - campaigning politician

Radical voice who helped modernise Italian society


Marco Pannella in 2010, still a voracious campaigner at the age of 80
Marco Pannella in 2010, still a voracious
campaigner at the age of 80
The Radical politician Marco Pannella, whose relentless campaigning on civil rights and other issues helped transform modern Italian society, was born on this day in 1930 in Teramo in Abruzzo.

Pannella’s party won only a 3.4 per cent share of vote in the most successful election he fought yet he forced referendums to be held on divorce, abortion, the abolition of nuclear power, the public funding of political parties and many other issues, many of which led to changes in the law.

He was so passionate about the causes for which he campaigned he regularly staged hunger strikes to demonstrate his commitment and to attract publicity.  In 1970, for example, he went 78 days without food, allowing himself to consume only vitamin pills and three cups of coffee per day, losing 27 kilos (60lb) in weight before parliament agreed to hold a debate over the divorce laws.

Pannella’s emotional speeches were legend, as were his broadcasts on Radio Radicale, the radio station he founded in 1976 as a vehicle for his own message, but also as a champion of free speech.

His parents named him Giacinto (Hyacinth) but he found the name embarrassing and went under the name of Marco instead. After studying at Rome University and the University of Urbino, where he obtained a law degree, he began a career in journalism but was already active in politics.

While still at university, he was a member of Gioventù Liberale, the youth organisation of the small centre-right Italian Liberal Party, and at 23 was President of Italy’s National Union of Students.  A year later, he founded the Partito Radicale – the Radical Party – with a liberal socialist ideology and a pledge to break the Vatican’s tight grip on Italian society.

Pannella’s party was barely noticed during the 1960s, part of which he spent in Paris working as a correspondent for the newspaper Il Giorno.

Pannella became one of the most familiar faces in Italian politics
Pannella became one of the most familiar
faces in Italian politics
This changed in 1970 when the Italian parliament, despite the opposition of the Christian Democrats and right-wing groups, passed a law allowing divorce, which had been Pannella’s most enduring cause and which he celebrated as a victory for his hunger strike.

Catholic organisations reacted with predictable outrage, gathering the required 500,000 signatures for a referendum to overturn it. Pannella campaigned vigorously for the new law to be upheld, encouraging Italy’s still-embryonic feminist movement to make their voice heard too. When the referendum was held in 1974, his argument won.

Italy thereafter developed something of a referendum culture, which Pannella exploited to the full. He staged another hunger strike in 1974 in pursuit of a referendum on abortion law. Thereafter, when he was not creating the news agenda himself, he found his opinion sought on every major issue in Italian society and became a familiar face on Italian television.

In 1976 Pannella was elected to parliament, where he remained for 18 years, representing at different times the constituencies of Turin, Milan, Naples and Palermo. The Radical Party had only a handful of MPs but they included a controversial assortment of characters, including Ilona Staller, better known as La Cicciolina, a porn star.

In 1983, he gave a seat to Antonio Negri, a Marxist philosopher accused of being the leader of the Red Brigades, who had been in prison for four years while awaiting trial. Pannella did not support terrorism but argued that no individual should be kept in custody for so long without being tried and gave Negri a seat in order that he could claim parliamentary immunity in order to trigger his release, although he later criticised him for fleeing to France to avoid trial in Italy.

Pannella campaigning in 1974 ahead of the  referendum on divorce law
Pannella campaigning in 1974 ahead of the
referendum on divorce law
His campaigns, usually dismissed as stunts by his opponents, were not always successful. In 1995, for example, he dressed himself in a yellow santa claus suit in Piazza Navona in Rome, close to where he lived, and handed out free hashish and marijuana as part of a bid to have the drugs legalised. He did favour drug use but argued that decriminalisation would cut off a major flow of cash into the Mafia. He was arrested and given a three-month prison sentence, although it was later converted to a fine.

Controversially, in the 1990s he made an election pact with Silvio Berlusconi, whose ascent to power had been helped by Pannella’s campaign to deregulate broadcasting.  Pannella had lost his seat when Berlusconi was asked to form a government in 1994, dashing his own hopes of being part of that government, but succeeded in having his former Radical Party colleague Emma Bonino appointed to the European commission. Thanks to her influence, he was elected to the European parliament as the member for North-West Italy, serving from 1979 to 2009.

Despite the hunger strikes, which often left him very weak, and a lifelong smoking habit, he survived heart surgery in 1998 and lived to be 86 years old before succumbing to cancer last year.

The Duomo in Teramo with its 50-foot bell tower
The Duomo in Teramo with its 50-foot bell tower
Travel tip:

Teramo, Pannella’s birthplace, is an attractive small city of about 55,000 inhabitants about 150km (93 miles) north-east of Rome, between the Gran Sasso mountain range and the Adriatic coast. The city has Roman origins going back to 295BC and there are Roman remains visible today, including a 3,000-seat amphitheatre that is still used for sporting events. There is also a 12th-century Romanesque Duomo, the Cathedral of St Berardo, which has a Gothic-style façade and a 50-foot bell tower.



Rome's beautiful Piazza Navona
Rome's beautiful Piazza Navona
Travel tip:

Pannella’s home in Rome was in the neighbourhood of Piazza Navona, the beautiful square in the heart of the city at which Pannella’s secular funeral was held. Built on the site of a Roman stadium, it was transformed into a showcase for Baroque Roman architecture and art during the pontificate of Innocent X in the 17th century.  Features include magnificent fountains by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Giacomo della Porta, the Palazzo Pamphili and the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, on which Francesco Borromini, Girolamo Rainaldi, Carlo Rainaldi and others worked.


More reading:

How Emma Bonino gave Radical Party a role in government as Minister of Foreign Affairs

The Red Brigades and the Aldo Moro kidnap

Beppe Grillo and the rise of the Five-Star Movement

Also on this day:

1660: The birth of composer Alessandro Scarlatti

1913: The birth of Maserati designer Pietro Frua

(Picture credits: top picture by Jollyroger; second picture by Mihai Romanciuc; Piazza Navona by Dalbera; all via Wikimedia Commons)




9 March 2017

Emma Bonino – politician

Leading Radical learnt Arabic to understand Middle East press


Radical politician Emma Bonino
Radical politician Emma Bonino
Veteran politician Emma Bonino, who most recently served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of Enrico Letta, was born on this day in 1948 in Bra in Piedmont.

A leading member of the Italian Radicals, Bonino has throughout her career been an activist for reform policies and a campaigner for women's and human rights.

Bonino graduated in modern languages and literature from Bocconi University in Milan in 1972. She founded the Information Centre on Sterilisation and Abortion in 1975 and promoted the referendum that led to the legalisation of abortion in Italy.

She was first elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1976 and was re-elected six times afterwards.

In 1986 Bonino was among the promoters of a referendum against nuclear energy, which led to the rejection of a civil nuclear energy programme in Italy.

Emma Bonino meets British Foreign Secretary William  Hague in 2013 during her time as Minister of Foreign Affairs
Emma Bonino meets British Foreign Secretary William
Hague in 2013 during her time as Minister of Foreign Affairs
She was appointed minister for international trade in the cabinet of Romano Prodi in 2006 but resigned her post in 2008 after being elected a vice president of the Senate. She had previously been elected to a seat in the Senate on the list of the Democratic party for the Piedmont Constituency.

Bonino was elected to the European parliament in 1979 and re-elected twice afterwards. Along with the late Marco Pannella, another Radical politician, Bonino has battled for civil rights, individual liberty, and sexual and religious freedom.

She has particularly fought for an end to capital punishment, female genital mutilation and world hunger.

In 2001 Bonino moved to Cairo to learn Arabic and in 2003 she started a daily review of the Arabic press on Radical Radio. She is able to follow the Al Jazeera broadcasts and read the main Middle East daily newspapers. Bonino is a Board member of the Arab Democracy Foundation and has become an authoritative expert and commentator on problems in the Middle East.

Emma Bonino with Socialist President Sandro Pertini on the March for Peace in Rome in 1985
Emma Bonino with Socialist President Sandro Pertini
on the March for Peace in Rome in 1985
In 2004 she organised the first conference on democracy and human rights ever held in the Arab world.

Among awards she has received for protecting human rights are the North-South prize, the Open Society Prize, the Prix Femmes d’Europe and the America Award. She was named European of the Year in 1996.

Bonino is a godmother to Countess Luana, the elder daughter of her friends, the late Prince Friso and Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau.






The Corso Cottolengo in Bra, looking towards Piazza Caduti per la Libertà and the church of Andrea Apostolo
The Corso Cottolengo in Bra, looking towards Piazza
Caduti per la Libertà and the church of Andrea Apostolo





Travel tip:

The town of Bra, where Emma Bonino was born, is in the province of Cuneo in Piedmont, 50 km (31 miles) south of Turin. The Slow Food movement was founded in Bra in 1989 and every two years, Cheese, the most important international event devoted to high quality cheese, is held in Bra. A few kilometres away from Bra in the town of Pollenzo, the University of Gastronomic Sciences was founded in 2004, the first university in the world entirely dedicated to the culture of food.

Hotels in Bra by Booking.com




Travel Tip:

Bocconi University in Milan, where Emma Bonino studied modern languages and literature, is a prestigious, private university founded in 1902 by Ferdinando Bocconi. The first Italian University to grant a degree in economics, Bocconi is located in Via Roberto Sarfatti, south of Milan city centre and not far from the Navigli district.