Japan Press Weekly

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2011 May 18 - 24 [EDUCATION]

Yokohama lawyers protest agaisnt pressure group praising war

Conservative and rightwing organizations and individuals in Kanagawa Prefecture are simultaneously applying pressure on local assemblies to adopt textbooks praising Japan’s war and expressing hostility to the present Constitution.

Which textbooks to adopt for use at the prefecture’s public junior-high schools will be decided in August.

Petitions have already been made to the prefectural assembly and ten city assemblies in the prefecture.

Alarmed by this move, 72 lawyers in Yokohama City on May 12 published a statement that the move amounts to “unjust influence in education.”

The statement reads: In choosing a textbook, intention of teachers who give lessons by using it should be reflected most strongly. Intention of schools at which curriculums are drawn up should also be respected.

The lawyers criticized the local assemblies for possibly using their influence over adopting textbooks as unjust control of education, which is banned by Article 16 Section 1 of the Fundamental Law of Education.