A longtime companion of a female Italian reporter kidnapped in Iraq announced on Friday that friends and sympathizers planned a hunger strike to press for the journalist's release.

Pier Scolari told an Italian television station that he was also planning a large demonstration at Rome's Auditorium concert venue this weekend to ask for the release of 57-year-old Giuliana Sgrena.

"Next week we'll start a hunger strike to ask for the liberation of Giuliana," he said, adding that many Catholic bishops would be involved.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on Wednesday issued a fresh appeal for the unconditionally immediate release of Sgrena, who was abducted in Baghdad three weeks ago.

Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 while driving away from a mosque in Iraq.
 
(Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2005)