Fears for Italy hunger striker

Bonino: Will not commit suicide

ROME, Italy -- Doctors in Italy are expressing alarm at the condition of politician Emma Bonino who has been on a hunger strike for five days.

Bonino, 53, is the leader of a small political party and is protesting at what she says is unfair media coverage of forthcoming elections.

She has been taken to Sao Paolo hospital in Milan late Tuesday, but has refused all medication and is not taking any food or liquid.

Italian news agencies said that doctors at Sao Paolo were worried about Bonino's heart and might order "obligatory treatment."

The reports said Bonino, a former European Commissioner, was suffering from an irregular heartbeat as well as symptoms of dehydration.

But party officials say she has no intention of committing suicide and will call off her protest before a serious deteriorating in her health.

Her hunger strike aims to draw attention to the scant amount of air time Italian television is giving to small parties running in the May 13 general election.

Bonino, former EU Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner, leads the Radical Party, one of the smaller parties in the race. Her spokesman Pietro Petruccio told Reuters on Wednesday that Bonino, 53, was admitted to hospital with an irregular heartbeat but has vowed to continue her protest.

"She will continue her hunger strike in hospital under doctors' control," Petruccio said.

"Emma Bonino has no intention of committing suicide. As soon as the doctors tell her to stop (the strike) because there are serious risks to her health, she will," he added.

The slightly-built Bonino, whose party garnered just 2.2 percent of votes at regional elections in April last year, has so far lost about an eighth of her body weight.

Bonino stopped eating and drinking on Friday evening in protest at the lack of coverage given to issues the Radical party sees as key -- such as euthanasia and freedom for scientific research -- ahead of a general election on May 13.

Bonino is joined in her protest by a fellow Radical parliamentary candidate Luca Coscioni, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and has stopped taking some of his medicines.

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