Mei Shigenobu (重信 メイ Shigenobu Mei, born 1 March 1973) is the daughter of Japanese Red Army communist Fusako Shigenobu and of a Palestinian guerilla fighter who was reportedly the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[1][2] Some news agencies have given her name as May Shigenobu.
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She was born in Lebanon, though she was not a citizen of any country until March 2001, when she received Japanese citizenship.[3][4] Shigenobu lived some of her childhood years in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; Fusako Shigenobu was absent for months at a time and Mei was raised in those periods by her mother's comrades in the Japanese Red Army and Arab friends and supporters. After three Japanese volunteers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP External Operations executed an attack on Israel's Lydd Airport (see also Lod Airport Massacre ) in 30 May 1972, PFLP leaders and other Japanese volunteers became targets for Israel's assassinations. In retaliation to the attack, PFLP's spokesman Ghassan Kanafani was killed in July 8, 1972 by the Israeli Intelligence Agency Mossad in a car bomb. Mei's mother became wanted by the INTERPOL in 1974 after the French embassy hostage-taking in Hague in which she was thought to be involved, so Mei had to move frequently and use aliases to evade reprisals by her mother's enemies.[5] She did her early education in several schools in Lebanon and in other countries she refuses to name. May studied Journalism at the Lebanese University as well as going to the American University of Beirut in Lebanon for her tertiary education where she continued her graduate studies in International Relations. During those years, she learned to speak fluent Arabic and English, but hid her knowledge of Japanese, fearing that if her identity as Fusako Shigenobu's daughter were to become known publicly, her mother might be captured.[6]
She came out of hiding after her mother was captured in Osaka, and visited Japan for the first time in April 2001, making her the first child of a Red Army member to return to Japan in five years.[7] She was the subject of some controversy in December 2001 when she gave a talk at a public school in Kanagawa prefecture about Arab culture and food at the invitation of a teacher there; the Israeli embassy in Tokyo sent a complaint to the school, describing her discussion as conveying "blatant, biased political" anti-Israeli sentiments.[8] She then began working as an English teacher in a cram school in Tokyo.[5] Japanese lawyers, scholars, journalists, writers and activists retaliated to this by signing a protest petition against the Israeli embassy and government saying that Mei was now a Japanese citizen and had the right to freedom of speech in Japan.
Mei later became an anchor on Japanese cable television channel Asahi Newstar's one hour live political programme Nyuusu no Shinsō.[9] She is currently MBC's (Middle East Broadcasting Center, the United Arab Emirates' Arabic satellite channel) Tokyo correspondent, reporting in Arabic about Japan. [10]
She earned her PhD degree in Media Studies from Doshisha University in 2011, doing research on the development of Arabic media, and the effect of satellite channels ( a case study of Al Jazeera ) on Arab societies.
Mei Shigenobu is a supporter of Palestinian statehood and a critic of Israel, and speaks of her mother's cause in sympathetic terms, although regretful of the violence used by the Japanese Red Army in support of the cause.[1][5][11] She said, according to The Standard, that "We live in a different era ... it was an era in which people were fighting, thinking and being active everywhere against the Vietnam War and other oppression around the world and there were no means of gaining media attention. We forget all that background and we just pick up a person from there and choose to sentence her using today's sensibility, today's values and today's way of thinking."[6]
Mei Shigenobu appears in Nobuyuki Oura's November 2006 movie "9/11-8/15 Japan Pack Suicide" (『9.11-8.15-日本心中-』) as a member of the main cast.[2][12]
Mei also appears in "Documentary on Zunou Keisatsu" ドキュメンタリー頭脳警察 (2009), a documentary featuring the life of the Japanese Rock band "Zunou Keisatu" 頭脳警察 (Brain Police) and its lead singer PANTA.[13][14]
In 2010, Mei costarred in the fictional Japanese movie on figure skating "COACH" as a sports journalist.[15][16]
In 2010, Mei Shigenobu and her mother Fusako Shigenobu were featured in Shane O'Sullivan (filmmaker)'s documentary film Children of the Revolution (2010 film), which premiered at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.[17][18]
In 2011, Mei Shigenobu was featured in Eric Baudelaire's experimental movie "The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 years without Images" along with filmmaker and Japanese Red Army member Masao Adachi, which competed at the 22nd Marseilles International Film Festival.[19]