workingclasshistory:

On this day, 25 January 1911 Kanno Sugako, a Japanese anarchist feminist, was executed for her part in a plot to assassinate the Emperor. She remains the only woman to be executed in Japan for treason.
Radicalised at the age of 14 after being raped, she was one of Japan’s first female journalists and advocates of women’s rights, as well as a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. She was inspired by Sophia Perovskaya, who helped assassinate the Russian Tsar.
Sugako had admitted her guilt, as had her half-dozen or so co-conspirators. But 24 anarchists, who were mostly innocent, were sentenced to death, which enraged Sugako, who had accepted her own sentence.
In her prison diary she wrote: “I am convinced our sacrifice is not in vain. It will bear fruit in the future. I am confident that because I firmly believe my death will serve a valuable purpose I will be able to maintain my self-respect until the last moment on the scaffold. I will be enveloped in the marvelously comforting thought that I am sacrificing myself for the cause. I believe I will be able to die a noble death without fear or anguish.”
In her final entry she wrote of her happiness upon learning that 12 of her fellow defendants were reprieved, and whose lives were spared.
You can read her full diary here: https://libcom.org/history/reflections-way-gallows https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1333727286812418/?type=3