The following is from a series of columns by Ms. Iiyama Akari in the monthly magazine Hanada, which is now on sale, entitled Don’t be fooled by hypocrites.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people all over the world.　
As mentioned in this column, Ms. Iiyama Akari is an up-and-coming female scholar who has appeared like a comet in the media world.
Emphasis in the text other than the headline is mine.

Hypocrites idolizing Fusako Shigenobu.
Everyone has more than one face.　
Even the most heinous criminal or brutal dictator has a “good person” side.
However, this does not justify their crimes and atrocities.　
The Asahi Shimbun, however, does not have that principle.
Asahi emphasizes and glorifies the “good guy” aspect of dictators and terrorists and hides, trivializes, or justifies the ugly side of the person.　
In general, it is a virtue to admire others.
But it is hypocrisy if it is done to cover up inconvenient facts or to serve a particular ideological purpose.
Furthermore, idolizing dictators and terrorists and propagating the idea that one should follow their example is a denial of democracy and an aiding and abetting terrorism.　
The Asahi Shimbun is known for reporting the death of Soviet “supreme leader” Joseph Stalin in 1953 with the headline “Stalin’s Childish Uncle Gone.
The Asahi article for children made no mention of Stalin’s so-called “Great Purges” or the Holodomor, which claimed tens of millions of lives, but instead stated that Stalin “grew up in a bad situation, so from early on he had warm sympathy for the poor” and that “he was always popular with his friends, He was popular among his friends.　
Children who read this article alone are brainwashed into believing that Stalin was a great man from childhood to death.
For anti-Americans who hate the U.S. and believe that the root of all evil lies in U.S. hegemony, Stalin is the anti-American star.
In 1953, when the Internet did not exist, it would have been easy for Asahi to deceive and brainwash the public through disinformation and biased reporting.　
Their despicable ways are gradually becoming less and less acceptable to the public with the spread of the Internet and the development of social networking services.
That is why they are now actively manipulating impressions through biased reporting in a genre difficult for the Japanese public to grasp.

High Praise for the Most Terrifying Terrorists　
One example is their coverage of the Middle East.　
When Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Soleimani was killed in a U.S. military operation in 2020, Asahi praised him as an “Iranian national hero” and a “soldier of poverty” and criticized the U.S. and the then Trump administration for killing him.　
The Asahi praised Soleimani and published a series of “expert” claims that the U.S. was worse for killing him and that the Trump administration was to blame.　
Kazuto Suzuki, an international political scientist known for his extensive media exposure and currently a professor at the University of Tokyo Graduate School, idolized Soleimani in the Asahi, praising him as “probably the most outstanding commander of an armed group in the Middle East, with a brilliant record,” and “highly regarded at home and abroad, He also ridiculed President Trump, who gave the order to kill Soleimani, saying that he may have wanted to show that he had achieved what Obama could not and that he may have thought it necessary to distract the public from this issue (the resolution to impeach President Trump).　
Professor Yasuyuki Matsunaga of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies commented, “Commander Soleimani was a reciting Naniwa-bushi, rushing to the hospital when his subordinates were injured, and rushing to his parents’ house to cry with his family when he died. The people of Iran regarded him as a hero, and some even suggested that he might be a presidential candidate.”　
In reality, Soleimani is the mastermind behind Iran’s foreign operations. 
He is also responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan.　
His methods are ruthless, including chemical weapons and the starvation of entire cities against people who disagree with his wishes.
In Arab countries, he has been known exclusively as “the most fearsome terrorist.”
In Japan, however, he is an unknown figure.　
For Asahi, it is a piece of cake to idolize a foreign “deadliest terrorist” unknown in Japan and make him a victim of the “U.S. imperialist” violence.
In cooperation with “experts,” Asahi uses these incidents to create the impression that the U.S. is evil.

Asahi Shimbun Conceals the Facts　
On July 12, Asahi published an article titled “Former top leader of the Japanese Red Army, Fusako Shigenobu, regrets she could not change her organization’s disdain for women.
The article appeared in the “ThinkGender” section.
Shigenobu is somehow regarded as a role model for thinking about gender.
The article begins by introducing Shigenobu as follows.　
〈Fusako Shigenobu, 77, a former top leader of the Japanese Red Army, was released from prison last May after serving her sentence. She was imprisoned for conspiring in the occupation of the French Embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands, and for attempted murder and other crimes. “I was immature in my choice of armed struggle. My mind was occupied with the idea of “rightness,” and I was unaware of the relationships between people and the pain they were going through. I went down the wrong path out of selfishness,” she recalls. Now, reflecting on the nature of the organization, which closed off discussion and showed contempt for women, he says, “I want to apologize to the people who forced me to do the damage.”〉　
Words such as “complicity in the embassy occupation” and “attempted murder” give the impression that Shigenobu’s crime was minor and that she did not take anyone’s life.　
However, Shigenobu led three Japanese nationals who opened fire with automatic weapons at an Israeli airport in 1972, killing 26 people. It was Shigenobu who founded the Japanese Red Army. This international terrorist organization has since launched a series of heinous terrorist attacks worldwide, threatening countless innocent lives and threatening the Japanese government for its money.
Asahi’s article hides these facts and trivializes them to the extreme.　
Furthermore, after defending Shigenobu, saying that she has already reflected on her actions, Asahi suddenly changes the subject, saying that she is actually a pioneering feminist who has been fighting against discrimination against women for 50 years, and praises her and suggests that we should follow her lead.　
In the article, Shigenobu is positioned as a “victim” of discrimination against women within the leftist movement.
However, Shigenobu does not cry herself to sleep.
“I brought this up to the Central Committee of the Red Army Faction, saying, It’s discrimination only to allow women to do auxiliary work.” When I was told that it was “sassy” and “even though I’m a woman,” I said, “What’s wrong with being a woman and being a superior? ” she spoke sharply.
“Unless society changes, it is useless to discuss it. We have no choice but to make people recognize the value of women as human beings through the process of struggle,” the article says.　
In short, Shigenobu’s armed struggle was not only for the “simultaneous world revolution” and the “liberation of Palestine” but also to fight discrimination against women.　
I have no idea how motivating one’s allies to carry out hijackings, attacks, and bombings worldwide will lead to the fight against discrimination against women.

If it is leftist terrorism, the Asahi Shimbun and its sympathizers are not afraid to defend it.
In the article, however, Ryoko Kosugi, an associate professor at Saitama University, defends the “student movement,” saying, “There are still things that can be learned in terms of both merits and demerits, although some people have entered into reckless armed struggle in an attempt to change the social fabric.　
Ms. Kosugi noted that not a few young people are interested in this period, such as Naoki Yamamoto’s hit manga “Red,” which depicts the United Red Army incident, and added, “When I show videos of demonstrations from that time in class, some students are intimidated by the force and impressed by the passion for society, and when I explain the students’ awareness of the issues at the time, many students show understanding,
Students today don’t “exercise” because they have been “planted with the image that student movements are evil.”　
She criticizes Japanese society by arguing this way.
Even today, there are “activists” at Japanese universities who idolize the Japanese Red Army and the United Red Army, equating them with “student movements,” praising their “passion” to “change society,” and conveying this to today’s students. 
There is no “merit” in terrorism.
To admit this is nothing more than an advocacy of terrorism, which justifies violence by inventing reasons to justify it.
Always oppose war! Against violence! Resolve problems peacefully through dialogue! The noisy Asahi Shimbun newspaper is not afraid to defend left-wing terrorism and suggests that we follow suit.
We must not ignore their contradictions and appalling hypocrisies; we must uncover every detail we find.