19 Facts About Mei Shigenobu

Mei Shigenobu was born on March 1,1973 and is a Japanese journalist.

Mei Shigenobu is the daughter of Japanese Red Army leader Fusako Shigenobu and of an unknown Palestinian who was reportedly a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Mei Shigenobu was born in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon in 1973.

Mei Shigenobu's father was a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine guerrilla leader and her mother was the Japanese Red Army leader Fusako Shigenobu.

Mei Shigenobu's mother became wanted by the INTERPOL in 1974 after the French embassy hostage-taking in The Hague in which she was thought to be involved, so Mei Shigenobu had to move frequently and used aliases to evade reprisals by her mother's enemies.

Mei 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; while her birth father was killed sometime during her childhood.

Mei Shigenobu had her early education in several schools in Lebanon and in other countries she refuses to name.

Mei Shigenobu 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.

Mei Shigenobu was not a citizen of any country until March 2001, when she received Japanese citizenship.

Mei Shigenobu 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.

Japanese lawyers, scholars, journalists, writers and activists responded by signing a protest petition against the Israeli embassy and government saying that Mei Shigenobu was now a Japanese citizen and had the right to freedom of speech in Japan.

Mei Shigenobu then began working as an English teacher in a cram school in Tokyo.

Mei Shigenobu later became an anchor on Japanese cable television channel Asahi Newstar's one-hour live political programme News no Shinso.

Mei Shigenobu is currently MBC's Tokyo correspondent, reporting in Arabic about Japan.

Mei Shigenobu 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 on Arab societies.

Mei Shigenobu is a supporter of Palestinian statehood and a critic of Israel.

Mei Shigenobu appears in Documentary on Zunou Keisatsu, a documentary featuring the life of the Japanese Rock band "Zunou Keisatu" and its lead singer PANTA.

In 2010, Mei Shigenobu costarred in the fictional Japanese movie on figure skating Coach as a sports journalist.

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 was entered at the 22nd Marseilles International Film Festival.