Fusako Shigenobu (Japanese: 重信 房子, Hepburn: Shigenobu Fusako, born 28 September 1945) is a Japanese communist activist, writer, and the founder and leader of the now-disbanded militant group Japanese Red Army (JRA).
Born in Japan, Shigenobu became involved in New Left activism while attending night school at Meiji University in Tokyo. In 1969, she joined the Red Army Faction (RAF), a communist group that advocated immediate, armed revolution against the governments of the United States and Japan. Eventually becoming one of its senior leaders, Shigenobu played a significant role in establishing the International Relations Bureau for the organization.
In 1971, she helped found the JRA as an offshoot of the RAF. That same year, Shigenobu and the JRA relocated to the Middle East in an effort to start a world revolution, as well as to assist with the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation while working in concert with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). During the 1970s and 1980s, members of the JRA took part in a number of violent incidents, including bombings, mass shootings, and hijackings. Although Shigenobu did not directly participate in these activities, during this time she attained international fame as the leader and public-facing spokesperson for the JRA.
Throughout her years in hiding and later imprisonment, Shigenobu authored 10 books, including a book of poetry.
Following her arrest in 2000 after several years of hiding, Shigenobu was put on trial for passport forgery and alleged conspiracy involving an attempted hostage-taking operation at the French Embassy in The Hague in 1974. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 and released in 2022.
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I am disappointed. I’ve decided to stop talking to a person I had been talking to for a while who I had thought was becoming increasingly left-wing. Today we were discussing the recent shooting in Belgium where two Swedes were killed. I tried to make them understand that Islamic extremism and its prevalence is as much a product of Western imperialism and funding of extremists at the expense of left-wing movements such as the Kurds as anything else, as well as the racism and exclusionary politics that Muslims face in Europe.
From there we moved onto talking about the burning of the Qu’ran, my position is the burning of the Qu’ran should be considered a hate crime and serves only to boost right-wing forces. They started screeching about freedom and democracy, I tried to reason with them but in the end I just had to tell them I refuse to talk to them anymore until they educate themselves.
Freedom and democracy is when you do the one thing you know will piss people off more than any other thing, and you insist on doing it over and over because somehow gravely insulting people proves they’re bad or something.