Japan Press Weekly

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2015 April 1 - 7 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

JCP issues statement on school textbook screening results

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Hatano Kimie, who heads the education section of the JCP Dietmembers’ group, on April 6 issued a statement on the screening results of textbooks selected for junior high schools.

This was the first screening conducted by the education ministry after the Abe government revised the guidelines for textbook authorization.

The JCP statement points out that textbooks which successfully had the authorization renewed include a history textbook that depicts the Asia-Pacific War as a war to maintain Japan’s self-existence and liberate Asian countries and a civics textbook that offers distorted explanations about the constitutional principles of pacifism and democracy.

The statement also cites the fact that a publishing company, which had tried to include the so-called “comfort woman” issue in its textbook, had to change the descriptions of the issue drastically.

The statement criticizes Prime Minister Abe Shinzo for seeking to impose his biased historical view on society through school indoctrination. Abe’s attempt to justify the past war of aggression will isolate Japan from Asia and the rest of the world, the statement stressed.

Noting that the government expressed its remorse over the wartime history in the Murayama Statement and the Kono Statement, the JCP in its statement expressed its determination to work to have this remorse reflected in school textbooks.