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 (2006–2008 and 2013–2015) and was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2013. 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.

Career Bernardini joined the Radical Party in 1975 and worked at the party's radio station, Radio Radicale, from 1983 until the early 1990s, ultimately as deputy director.

She was national secretary of the Italian Radicals from 2006 to 2008 and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies at the 2008 Italian general election on the Democratic Party list, serving until 2013 as a member of the Justice Committee. In February 2010 she held a hunger strike over prison conditions and the transparency of parliamentary expenditure.

In November 2013 she was again elected secretary of the Italian Radicals, on Pannella's proposal, serving until November 2015. In 2015 she was appointed to coordinate the working group of the Italian Ministry of Justice's States General on Penal Execution devoted to prisoners' right to family and emotional ties.

In November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she began a 35-day hunger strike calling for measures against prison overcrowding; the initiative was joined by thousands of citizens and publicly supported by writers and intellectuals including Roberto Saviano, Sandro Veronesi and Adriano Sofri, and was suspended after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte agreed to meet her.

Bernardini is the president of Hands Off Cain (Nessuno tocchi Caino): she was confirmed in the office at the association's eighth congress, held in December 2019 in the Opera prison near Milan, and again at the eleventh congress, held in December 2025 at the Beccaria juvenile prison in Milan. In this role she has continued hunger and thirst strikes against prison overcrowding and has been heard by the Chamber of Deputies on early release measures.

At the 2024 European Parliament election in Italy she headed the United States of Europe list in the Insular Italy constituency, conducting the electoral campaign while on a 28-day hunger strike against prison overcrowding; she obtained 3,883 preference votes, with the list falling short of the electoral threshold.

In June 2025 she received the "Riccardo Polidoro" prize of the Union of Italian Penal Chambers, awarded unanimously "in defence of the dignity and hope of prisoners". In May 2026 she joined the scientific committee of the Italian Movement for Prisoners' Rights (Movimento Italiano Diritti Detenuti), a Milan-based non-profit association founded by Giulia Troncatti to protect the rights of detained persons and support their social reintegration.