Daughter slams rights abuse of convicted Japanese Red Army founder

TOKYO, March 8 Kyodo

Fusako Shigenobu, the convicted founder of the leftist Japanese Red Army group, may be suffering from a parotid tumor but is being barred from receiving proper medical treatment in detention, her daughter and lawyer said Wednesday.

May Shigenobu, 33, who was born in Beirut and whose father is a Palestinian, said the manner in which her 60-year-old mother has been treated during more than five years in detention shows a lack of respect for her human rights.

''I think we really should fight not just for my mother, but start fighting for human rights in Japan. It's not on the surface, but we should really look into how people are treated when they are on the wrong side of the law,'' May said, meeting the press following a Feb. 23 Tokyo District Court ruling in which Shigenobu was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

She has been allowed to meet only her lawyer and family members since her arrest in November 2000, May said.

Although Shigenobu has recently been suspected of having a parotid tumor, her access to doctors has also been limited, said her chief defense lawyer Kyoko Otani who also attended the press conference.

May criticized Japan's legal system as being ''anything but fair'' after Shigenobu was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her involvement in the 1974 seizure of the French Embassy in The Hague and other charges and two passport law violation charges.

Shigenobu was convicted of conspiring with three Red Army members to seize the embassy and take 11 hostages to secure the release of a group member detained in France, though the court said it is ''not clear'' when and where the conspiracy took place.

Shigenobu, pleading not guilty to the embassy takeover charge, appealed the ruling. The prosecutors, who had wanted life imprisonment, also appealed it.

''It is a political case -- a case that has been made up from the terrorist image of her in the Japanese media for all the 30 years that have passed,'' May said, accusing the court of punishing a defendant despite having no hard evidence.

May also said the sentence was based on the values or ways of thinking of the present time while the circumstances of the era when the incident occurred were not taken into account.

''It was an era of everywhere people fighting, thinking, being active against Vietnamese War and other oppressions around the world,'' May said. ''What they believed, I'm sure...it's something that should still be fought for and still existing now. The Palestinian issue still exists.''

After entering Lebanon in 1971, Shigenobu formed the Japanese Red Army and tied up with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The group advocated creating overseas bases to help bring about revolution.

According to the Japanese police, the Red Army was involved in terrorist acts such as a machine gun and grenade attack on Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, which left 24 dead and 76 injured.

May, who meets with Shigenobu usually about once a week, said she talks with her mother about various issues including activities at that time and the current Middle East situation.

''She says that of course we did the best we thought at the time, but of course thinking back, she thinks maybe there were other ways in which the fight could have been more effective, more useful, more efficient,'' May said.

Now studying at Doshisha University and working as a freelance journalist after acquiring Japanese nationality at age 28, May said she wants to keep acting in her own way, saying she feels it is her duty to provide more information on the Middle East to Japanese people as it is often reported through the filter of the United States.

''My appeal to Japanese society is that we shouldn't judge things with the images we receive...I'm not sure if we can appeal in a clear way, but I think slowly but surely we should try to provide as much necessary information for people to be able to judge certain issues and certain people on their own,'' May said.

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