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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Education ministry forces editors to rewrite textbook description of 'comfort women' and Nanking Massacre

In its screening of new high school textbooks for the next school year beginning in April 2007, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry demanded that editors rewrite descriptions of wartime sex slaves and the Nanking Massacre, apparently with the aim of hiding the ugly realities of Japan's past aggression.

The ministry made public the result of its screening on March 29. Concerning the wartime sex slaves, the ministry demanded that the sentence "(They) were made into comfort women by the Japanese military" be changed into "comfort women for the Japanese military," thus obscuring the responsibility of the Japanese military. It criticized textbooks for stating that the number of Chinese victims of the Nanking Massacre was "more than 200,000" on the grounds that it does not take into consideration various other estimates. The ministry ordered that the description be changed into "There are various estimates about the number of victims, and a likely estimate is that it is over 200,000."

On the sentence "The Self-Defense Forces were dispatched to wartime Iraq," the ministry demanded that it be changed to "The Self-Defense Forces were dispatched to Iraq where armed conflicts were continuing even after the major combat was concluded" in conformity with the government argument that the SDF were sent to non-combat areas.

The education ministry ordered that the term "gender-free" be deleted from a social studies textbook, alleging that the term "can lead to misunderstanding."

Akahata of March 30 commented that behind the ministry's attempt to conceal the Japanese military's responsibility as the assaulter lies the attack on school textbooks by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, the organization set up by a group of scholars and citizens praising the war of aggression, and by the Liberal Democratic Party.

People concerned with the textbook issues pointed out that examiners' opinions are subjective, but that publishers have no choice but to follow them lest their textbooks be rejected. They said that the present textbook screening system should be abolished.
- Akahata, March 30, 2006