Japanese Red Army founder Shigenobu freed after 20 years in prison

I recall the firetrucks with water-cannons sitting beside the runways at Narita Airport well into the 1980s.

You're right. And there were road blocks at the entrance to the airport, with searches made of buses.

Clever choice of shawl.

While perhaps easy to condemn her as a terrorist, those times were ugly. Vietnam, the Cambodia carpet bombing, Israel-Palestine conflict. My images of Japan in my teenage years involved the campus occupations, the Red Army, and the protests against Narita airport. And yet I saw none of that when I first arrived in 1980. Quite a change.

She'll be on Talk Show soon.

Fusako Shigenobu should have remained incarcerated for the rest of her life.

Fusako Shigenobu conspired to commit heinous acts of terrorism that no amount of weasel words, crocodile tears will exonerate Fusako Shigenobu massacres.

Massacres Shigenobu planned and instigated.  

The victims families deserve better than to watch a mass murder released to lead a normal life whilst there only consolation is to visit the graves of there slaughtered loved ones.

Ms. Shigenobu named her daughter Mei after May 30, 1972, the date on which 3 of her Red Army "soldiers" murdered 26 people at Tel Aviv's Lod airport. Of the 26 people who were killed, most were U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

But since none of her victims were Japanese, the authorities here showed their "lenience" with a sentence of only 20 years.

She better watch out for the Mossad

Be assured Fusako Shigenobu doesn't give a moments thought for the families of the deceased.

There is not a ounce of contrition, only focus on wallowing in her own self-pity.

Sick and evil scum who helped plan the deaths of so many innocent people. Shame on her morally bankrupt "supporters"

"I apologize for the inconvenience my arrest has caused to so many people," Shigenobu told reporters after the release.

Did she really just try to write off terrorism as an inconvenience?!

I'd love to sit down and chat with her... Amazing stories to tell.

You can start by asking her how "amazing" it was to machine-gun and grenade innocent people in an airport. Absolute scum. No political cause justifies murdering innocent people.

Shigenobu quickly became involved in the leftist movement and decided to leave Japan aged 25.

It might be me, but I'm a bit confused by the wording of this sentence. Does it mean the Japanese Red Army (which she founded) or PFLP? Or is "leftist movement" here used as an umbrella term for all things broadly anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist?

The last option worries me a bit as it would, justly, be considered disingenuous to classify a white supremacist mass shooter with any pro-capitalist political party as one and the same "rightist movement".

And yet I saw none of that when I first arrived in 1980. 

I recall the firetrucks with water-cannons sitting beside the runways at Narita Airport well into the 1980s.

Why on earth did she have a cheerleading squad (fans) out there to meet her?

She should have never been let out of jail, that's where she should have died.

Should have hung when they caught her

She is believed to have masterminded the 1972 machine gun and grenade attack on Tel Aviv's Lod Airport, which left 26 people dead and injured about 80.

Hope this is the last we hear about her.

Former soy sauce worker turned militant.

A self-centred psychopath pretending that the brutality of terrorism is poetic. She wants the spotlight on her but in reality she is responsible for machine guns and grenades murdering innocents in an airport. She was a nobody working in a factory from a failed family so resorted to murder to make herself famous. She should have repented on her knees until her time was up but instead refuses to apologise for those murders.

20 years means 20 years in Japan.

No time off for behaving nicely.

Disappear please. Sooner the better.

Not a word of consolidation the victims families, not a spec of sorrow, shame or regret.

‘Empress of terror’: Japanese Red Army founder released from prison

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/28/empress-of-terror-japanese-red-army-founder-released-from-prison

Only those too ignorant of human thought and frustrated with their own personal abilities with intellectual expression make their arguments in blood. That is true today as it was when this cretin was an active murderer. Why is this scum allowed to walk free ever again?

Let her now just rot at home, and no further attention given to her.

She's paid the price that was enacted upon her. You can (and maybe even should) hate her, but she deserves no more persecution. Let her go off and die in peace.

She served her time, and whatever the system imposed on her as a penalty she complied unlike many others who escape and never face justice.

She didn't comply in serving her time--she was convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison..

And she did escape justice for decades.

As stated above:

She had lived as a fugitive in the Middle East for around 30 years before resurfacing in Japan.

And she returned illegally to Japan under a fake name, per WIki:

Shigenobu was arrested on 8 November 2000, outside a hotel in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture,[10][11] after entering Japan illegally through Kansai International Airport using a forged passport that she obtained by impersonating another person some time between 1997 and 2000.[12] Shigenobu was using the alias, "Fusako Okudaira," with which the arresting officers greeted her in order to gain her attention when they approached her.

It might be me, but I'm a bit confused by the wording of this sentence. Does it mean the Japanese Red Army (which she founded) or PFLP? Or is "leftist movement" here used as an umbrella term for all things broadly anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist?

The last option worries me a bit as it would, justly, be considered disingenuous to classify a white supremacist mass shooter with any pro-capitalist political party as one and the same "rightist movement".

It's referring to both, in a general sense. The JRA was a communist organization and the PLFP is a member party of the PLO which is based on secularism and Marxism-Leninism. So both would be classified as generally 'leftist'. As for a white supremacist mass shooter, white supremacy as a movement is a classified as a right-wing movement from the get-go. Pro-imperialism is also right-wing. Pro-capitalism can also be viewed as mildly right-leaning.

So, if a white supremacist mass shooter kills people and, say, cites conspiracy theories promulgated by right-wing pundits, then I see nothing disingenuous in classifying him as part of a 'rightist movement'

StrangerlandToday  06:56 am JST

The typical liberal response, coddle the criminal and totally forget about the victims and their families.

20 years in jail is coddling. Ok bruh. You lost any credibility with that claim. Didn't even bother reading the rest.

Nice try at deflection. Don't worry, you will master it one day. Practice makes perfect. Didn't even bother to read the rest? That is usually the case for people that wish not to see reality. The one who lost any credibility is the one that thinks 20 years in jail for master minding the deaths of 26 innocent people and injuring 80 more innocent people is sufficient.  Twenty years for killing one person in not sufficient. Would you have the courage to face the families of those killed and tell them that 20 years in jail was sufficient?  100 % guaranteed you would not have the courage.   She should die in jail, not a free person.  Better yet, let the families of the victims decide her fate.  By the way, I am not your “bruh”, and glad of that!

The JRA was Carlos the Jackal’s favorite terrorist group to work with. He thought they were the best of the various terrorist groups.

StrangerlandMay 29  04:12 am JST

She's paid the price that was enacted upon her. You can (and maybe even should) hate her, but she deserves no more persecution. Let her go off and die in peace.

The typical liberal response, coddle the criminal and totally forget about the victims and their families.  Just too much binary thinking.  What persecution did she endure?  She served 20 years and is now free. The dozens of people she killed never had those 20 years, or anything after that. Neither did their families. She most likely basked in the “glory”, in her mind, of killing dozens of innocent people because it fit her agenda.  Maybe using too much Mary Jane and other things obfuscates your reasoning.  Whatever happened to something called "taking responsibility for one's actions"? Actions do have consequences.

The typical liberal response, coddle the criminal and totally forget about the victims and their families.

20 years in jail is coddling. Ok bruh. You lost any credibility with that claim. Didn't even bother reading the rest.

The only consolation for her inadequate prison sentence is that she will die a painful death from colon cancer.

Lots of people here riding on their high horse of political correctness since Shigenobu is an easy target (terrorist is, as terrorist does), but to quote America's self-styled MAGA genius, famous for shaking the establishment's received "wisdom" by blurting out inconvenient truths: ..."there's a lot of killers. What, do you think our country's so innocent? The Japanese "Seki-Gun" were just a footnote to the 20th century's "Horrible Histories".

Why on earth did she have a cheerleading squad (fans) out there to meet her?

...... and why on earth did the media show up to give her any attention, and her supporters any attention?

The special manhunt operation for Shigenobu code-named "ZERO" is a very exciting story. Netflix should make a documentary.

警視庁公安部の秘密組織ZERO-日本赤軍重信房子逮捕までの軌跡

https://writerzlab.com/codename-zero/

“Masterminded” is the keyword.

Charles Manson never committed any crime himself.

He was slated for release in 2001 (? I remember) but declined because he had a jailhouse lover who he didn’t want to leave.

She served her time, and whatever the system imposed on her as a penalty she complied unlike many others who escape and never face justice.

Kinda like her scarf, where can I get one LOL

Well, if she was guilty, she has already paid his debt to justice, hopefully she will get better from his illness and in the future she will be able to contribute to society..

Why the hate and drama in some comments?.. take it easy and let it go..

By the way, very nice shawl..

Japan was in the midst of campus tumult in the 1960s and 70s to protest the Vietnam War and the Japanese government's plans to let the U.S. military remain stationed in the country.

Very well that at that time there were protests of Japanese people with dignity..

I'd love to sit down and chat with her... Amazing stories to tell.

It would be great, me too.

>

@fighto

You must be talking about the Japanese ?

The worst planned atrocities ever !

@Fighto! Sick and evil scum who helped plan the deaths of so many innocent people. Shame on her morally bankrupt "supporters"

I quite agree.

Her cancer operations when she was in prison were paid for by taxpayers’ money.

Her daughter Mei is at right. OK

Who is this one at her left? She was all so noisy

I'd love to sit down and chat with her... Amazing stories to tell.

I wonder what the dead victims of her terrorism would say to the length of her punishment. The survivors. The families and friends of the dead…and the living.

If a Supreme Being exists and is supremely just, she will receive a just punishment eventually if 20 years was insufficient. As will we all for our own willful acts..