“In 2022, these are the toughest women for whom we acknowledged our love, most often, and most intensely,” said Katie Alsop, executive director of the global women’s rights organization, RINJ Women.
Sadly, three of 2021’s women who smooth the path of humanity for a future of innovation, opportunity & safety of children and their families, were held in prison or on bail by brutal authoritarian regimes. Today that is still true, and worse, one of our Sheroes was murdered by a state government on 11 May 2022 and the world is not over that assassination.
By Micheal John with files from Rosa Yamamoto, Behar Abbasi, Melissa Hemingway and Sharon Santiago
“In 2022, maybe the worst year for women and girls, ever, those same brutal authoritarian regimes adopted a state policy of ‘theological femicide’ as in Iran and Afghanistan. Meanwhile America provoked a war that is devastating whole populations of women and children. Sociopathic leaders like Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, and Volodymir Zelenskyy and people like U.N. Secretary General António Guterres whose organization’s rape culture is as bad as that of the Hell’s Angels, are screaming for the blood of their opponents willfully promoting the destruction of millions of families, literally. We suggest that if this patriarch doesn’t find peace soon, their membership be replaced, by any non-violent means,” says Dale Carter, security director of The RNJ Foundation whose role has now become paramount to aid worker’s safety, especially those who have been banned from humanitarian NGOs in Iran and Afghanistan by state governments.
Joining nearly a decade of recognized Sheroes, are women heroes of past years, and a Palestinian-American woman who answered the open question of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, “How many Palestinians have to die for their lives to matter?”.
Our 2022 Sheroes are:
- The late Shireen Abu Akleh, member of the amazing Aljazeera family.
- Former Senator Leila De Lima, a political prisoner in the Marcos/Duterte Republic of the Philippines since 2017; and
- the extraordinary President Tsai Ing-wen, leader of Taiwan.
Shireen Abu Akleh
The world was shocked into numbness at the moment of the targeted killing of Shireen Abu Akleh by the Israeli government in the Jenin IDP camp, a roughly 425 square meter Palestinian refugee camp north of the West Bank in the city of Jenin, in Palestine. We know all this, because we were there that day, on 11 May 2022.
Artwork/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
“Our CEO, a former Canadian Maclean Hunter journalist used to say to me on the phone, ‘I know I am in the right place because Shireen Abu Akleh is here with her crew’, and I began to realize what that meant. Shireen Abu Akleh for the best part of three decades was always on the story and always the presenter of truth. For that and her integrity; her wit; her humanity, we women adored her,” explained Katie Alsop.
“On 11 May when Nassima learned that Shireen had died, Nassima called me directly on my phone,” explained Ms. Alsop. “It must have cost her a hundred Euros—and she was sobbing when she told me what had happened to Shireen who had been using Nassima as a source of information for the injuries and even killings of civilians in Gaza. I was devastated. Actually, my first thought was that this must be some mistake. My second thought was about Netanyahu and his frenzied eagerness to score political points with Jews who hated the Palestinians, or for any reason that would get him away from prosecutors.”
Dr. Nassima al Amouri [one of the RINJ Foundation‘s medical directors] had been providing medical care at two hospitals in Gaza during the May 2021 Israeli attacks on the people of Gaza and occasionally at other times.
Nassima and co-workers had watched the 11-storey al-Jalaa building, which housed Shireen Abu Akleh’s Aljazeera family, plus several other media outlets including Associated Press plus there were even residences and other types of offices, all crashing to the ground after an Israeli air attack demolished the thirty-meter tall structure.
Palestinian-American Shireen Abu Akleh lived and worked here in Gaza at times since the mid-1990s.
On 13 May 2021, Rep. Rashida Tlaib addressed the US Congress in a plea for Palestinian rights. It was one year before the assassination of Shireen and a warning that was ignored by male American politicians floating around the White House like they owned the world and they alone gave birth to each other and their patriarch.
The intentional targeted killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
“The loss of Shireen has stolen many peoples’ accesses to truth.”
Screen capture of The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, a video report of an Aljazeera investigative report shadow-banned by the U.S. White House.
The overwhelming heartbreaking moment when Shireen’s Al Jazeera family and colleagues realized that Shireen had blood coming from her head. It was an Israeli sniper who shot her and continued to shoot at the heads of the man who tried to drag her body from under a tree to an area behind a concrete barrier.
FPMag gave the videos and the witness accounts to a seasoned sniper with over 560 kills during the lengthy war against ISIS that continues today in Syria and in Afghanistan—a woman who is now in Iran trying to even the odds in self defence of peaceful demonstrators, schoolgirls, in that violent Islamic Republic. This expert is familiar with the matter but not authorized by her security contractor to comment and thus requested anonymity.
Her report summary concludes that the consensus view is correct on the technical merits and that the Americans are lying; and that the Israelis are not lying but they have not come clean about the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh.
FPM.news has interviewed witnesses at both ends of the narrow bullet trajectory and has heard from nearly two dozen IDF soldiers, since FPM.news reported on what the first five had to say. These voices confirmed that this was a targeted killing. The shooters knew they were killing journalists; they knew they were killing Aljazeera crew and they knew they hit Shireen Abu Akleh.
The male journalist who tried repeatedly to rescue Shireen (Watch the Fault Lines video) risked his life and later learned the rounds came within centimeters of his head. Witnesses at the other end of the trajectory adduced that for reasons unknown a call went out for the Israeli forces to clear the area. At the same time, some witnesses were moving in to try and see what the noisy firings were about. There were no armed Palestinians in the area and that raised the level of curiosity.
The sniper’s bullets grazed an obstacle at his head-height when he dove again for cover after each attempt to get Shireen out of there. He tried repeatedly to remove Shireen to a safe area before succeeding. In that time the pinned-down team noticed she was bleeding from her head. When they finally got Shireen to a protected area about five meters away, they then assembled and carefully as they could, they carried her body to a vehicle and as they did that, one friend saw a slight flicker of her eyes and from then, there were no more reported indications of life.
Shireen and her colleagues were clearly marked as members of the “Press” and they were each targeted. Only two were hit by the snipers’ rounds, one in the shoulder and one in the head. Watch the al Jazeera Fault Lines special broadcast.
Click image to watch the al Jazeera Fault Lines special broadcast of the investigation into The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.
Lina Abu Akleh (r) has called her auntie Shireen, “the backbone of our family“ and she has said that this year’s family Christmas, sadly, had an empty seat for the first time in her young life. Many don’t realize that this is true for the entire world. The loss of Shireen has stolen many peoples’ accesses to truth. Photo credit: cropped video capture. Artwork/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
Editorial note: The American position on the targeted assassination of Shireen is vomit-worthy but looking at the way the USA government treats real journalists, like Julian Assange, or Jamal Khashoggi, and considering the incompetents that Joseph Biden has surrounded himself with, it is no surprise that the USA has abandoned one of its citizens because she is a woman; and because she is an extraordinary journalist. This will never be forgotten and is the beginning of the end of any last fragment of respect for the U.S. and even potentially the beginning of the end of the United States.
From what we and her other colleagues have seen, one could dare to say that Shireen’s Aljazeera family, for whom there is worldwide respect and love, has never left her side since the mid-1990s. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine.
Tsai Ing-wen
“This Shero is ensuring Taiwan’s Future of innovation, opportunity and safety of children and their families,” says a feminist defender of human rights. Photo Credit: Youtube. SCMP (Watch) Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Tsai Ing-wen is a Shero for proving the world needs female leadership in order to keep the peace.
Caught between the Americans and the People’s Republic of China, Tsai Ing-wen is the elected leader of the Republic of China (ROC), better known on the American side as “Taiwan”.
There must be days when Tsai Ing-wen has privately not been able to decide which of the two players on her opposite shoulders is friend or foe.
Then there was the day the Biden Democrat Congressional delegation led by Queen Democrat Nancy Pelossi, became the fly in the ointment that nearly started World War III. Beijing went ballistic, literally when a US Congress Delegation arrived in Taipei defying Beijing’s stop order.
Nancy Pelosi became an awkward menace to the world, but fortunately Tsai Ing-wen stick handled the crisis with finesse and prevented a major war.
“What countries in this region [Asia] know is that China cannot do nothing—it will look weak,” said one diplomat, Singaporean Kishore Mahbubani.
2 August 2022, 23:38 Beijing Time-–US Congressional Delegation arrived at Wyatt Hotel in Taipei entering underground parking.
US Congressional Delegation arrived in Taiwan to challenge China’s Sovereignty over Taiwan. Photo Credit: Video capture from live media feed. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Tsai Ing-wen stick handled the crisis with finesse and prevented a major war. Photo credit: Kathy Poon. Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Chinese citizens protested the US Congressional delegation challenging China’s Sovereignty over Taiwan. The Taipei-based Chinese Patriotic Concentric Association took to the street at a site near the Grand Hyatt hotel in the Xinyi district, where Pelosi stayed. The crowd ranged from a few hundred to about 1,000 people from various civic groups, according to Globaltimes.cn.
Tsai Ing-wen keeps the peace seemingly without acquiescing to either side, Beijing or Washington, but both have threatened violence against each other over Cina’s claim that “Taiwan” is a province of China.
Read if you wish: Biden sets up war with China. The old guy thinks Taiwan is his. Does Joe hear voices in the walls?- Editorial
File photo: Official government photo of President Tsai Ing-wen inspecting the Central Epidemic Command Center on 2 April 2020. Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Read if you wish: Tsai Ing-wen vs Xi Jinping. Beauty vs the Beast? It may be a good ending.
Leila De Lima
“Not one day has passed when Leila De Lima has not acted in a humanitarian quest for peace and safety for her country folk,” said Karinna Angeles from Manila.
Held in prison by Rodrigo Duterte for many years, former senator Leila De Lima, a global Shero who has fought against the Philippines government’s continued extrajudicial killings first under Rodrigo Duterte and now under Ferdinand Marcos was today a hostage in an attempted escape by hardened criminals at Camp Crame.
On 8 October Senator (Retired) Leila De Lima was safe and undergoing medical attention following a violent hostage taking by Abu Sayyaf (ISIS) terrorists in Philippines Camp Crame detention center where she has been a political prisoner for 6 years. Prof. De Lima is a human rights activist in the Philippines jailed for her antagonism toward the ongoing extrajudicial killings conducted by the Philippines government of the Duterte-now-Marcos/Duterte Regime. In recent weeks, political opponents, human rights advocates and journalists have been killed in Duterte-style two-man-motorcycle-gunmen kill-team murders. Photo credit: Source Supplied
Senator Leila De Lima listens to a PNP-CIDG officer who served the warrant for her arrest at the Senate grounds in Pasay City Friday morning. 24 February 2017. Photo Credit Avito C. Dalan / PNA. Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
“In the Philippines, rapists walk free while women who date their drivers are sent to the slammer. For years. That’s fair comment,” said a university professor in Manila who is familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment on behalf of her Philippines university and thus requested anonymity. She also said clearly, she does not want to be “killed by Duterte Death Squad members still roaming around killing people their bosses do not like”.
As a political prisoner of Rodrigo Duterte, against whom De Lima played the role of human rights defender—which displeased President Rodrigo Duterte completely—Professor Leila De Lima has been in jail since 24 February 2017.
On 2 August 2016, one month after Duterte took office and as extrajudicial killings began to mount in numbers, furiously, Dr. De Lima began her campaign with a privilege speech in the Philippines Senate.
“We have to continue opposing the murder of the innocents as well as that of the suspects. We must call for the accountability of state actors responsible for this terrifying trend in law enforcement, and the investigation of killings perpetrated by the vigilante assassins,” she said.
“In the campaign against criminality, we cannot applaud criminal methods merely because we are left unaffected. Life has more value than an accusation written on a piece of cardboard whether you are rich or a scum of the earth. Needless to say, all lives matter.”
In October 2016, De Lima had actually filed an Anti-Extrajudicial Killings Bill in the Philippines Senate which riled Rodrigo Duterte to no end. By that time the EJK death count was approaching 2,000 and because the DDS death squads were not up to snuff, there had been a lot of “collateral damage”—children murdered in the process of the killers trying to draw out the ‘targets’ who had gone into hiding. The killers did not get paid unless their target was proven to be dead, one such contracted killer told FPMag.
Pdf: Philippines Senate: An Act Defining Extrajudicial Killing, Providing For Its Penalty and Other Purposes. May not work on mobile AMP. Goto: NoAmp Version
Children in the Philippines are at high risk. Duterte calls murdered kids “collateral damage”. Photo courtesy The RINJ Foundation.
Rowena Vergara Tiamson, gone but not forgotten. Photo by Karina Angeles / RINJ.
On 16 March 2017, the European Parliament condemned the wave of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines and called for De Lima’s release. But she is still in the jail where recently she was kidnapped by ISIS terrorists.
On 1 February 2018, then-Senator Leila De Lima hit the Asian Correspondent‘s list of five prominent Southeast Asian leaders and human rights defenders who face weaponized justice department charges for defying the autocratic leaders of their countries.
This is what Leila De Lima has been fighting against since mid 2016 until now. This Shero’s supporters in the Philippines in their netzines are thanking her every day.
Witnesses brought against De Lima, were according to testimony, coached by some of the people on the list below. They have since recanted their original evidence which of course raises the questin, if they are liears, which statement is te truth and which is a lie. De Lima should not be held in custody unless it is for purpose of pretcting her from Duterte Death Squads. But she should have the optin to find her own protection.
The names listed below are in fact the people named in written ICC complaints of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines accepted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). These men of the Duterte regime are facing with fear the potential of being indicted by the ICC. The Marcos/Duterte government is doing everything in its power to thwart the efforts of the ICC prosecutor, however with considerable success. The ICC is not known for its successes and better known for its lapses.
The allegation against De Lima is that in some point in Professor De Lima’s life, she was having a romantic acquaintance become her official driver. Because she was having an affair with this person who is alleged to have used drugs at some point, she was therefore herself a drug user and the male correspondent was some kind of bagman. None of this is capable of proof over some six years and the original witnesses have adduced that the alleged crime, be it a crime or not, did not happen.
Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte
Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre
Former Philippine Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa
House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez
Former Interior Secretary Ismael Sueno
Police Superintendent Edilberto Leonardo
Senior Police Officer 4 Sanson ‘Sonny’ Buenaventura
Police Superintendent Royina Garma
National Bureau of Investigation Director Dante Gierran
Solicitor General Jose Calida
Sen. Richard Gordon
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano
The numbers of Extrajudicial Killings in the filing to the ICC were prepared by The RINJ Foundation in the Philippines officially in late 2018.
- Some 25 to 29.7 extra violent deaths occur daily in the Philippines as a result of state-personnel and state-directed-vigilante extra judicial killings.
- 1600 Filipinos die daily from all causes.
- 22.3-27 daily killings already take place as a result of murders and occasional armed conflicts.
- Under Rodrigo Duterte there have been 27,832 extrajudicial killings up to December of 2018.
- These numbers which are filed with the International Criminal Court were prepared over a period of more than a year with the help of hundreds of mortuary workers, coroners, and other medical officials RINJ works with regularly for other reasons. This infrastructure tabulated deaths and their causes well before the Duterte Regime and the successor regime realized and imposed restrictions on that element of Public Health.
What does Leila De Lima stand for? “For one thing, global feminists have selected her year after year since 2017 as a Shero for all of her time fighting for life; fighting for human rights even while in illegal detention as a political prisoner of the Philippines’ Duterte and Marcos regimes,” says Katie Alsop of RINJ Women, from Paris.
Rest in peace, Shero Shireen.
Godspeed to sheroes Tsai Ing-wen and Leila De Lima.