Saburo Ienega's The New History of Japan

• Date: 1985 - Present

• Location: Asia

• Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion

• Medium: Literature

• Artist/Author/Producer: Professor Saburo Ienega

• Confronting Bodies: Ministry of Education

• Dates of action: March 16, 1993

• Location: Japan

Description of the Art Work

Professor Saburo Ienega 's "The New History of Japan," a textbook commissioned for Japanese high schools, which included information on Japan's World War II atrocities including"...the rape of Nanking, germ warfare experiments on prisoners of war and the conscription of Korean and Chinese women "as comfort girls". (see Greenfield, The Nation, 'War and Amnesia,' December 16, 1991)

Description of incident

"Ienega's textbook, "The New History of Japan", was originally commissioned by the Ministry of Education. Upon review of the completed manuscript however, the ministry demanded that Ienega delete all sections on wartime atrocities. Ienaga refused and filed suit, claiming that the ministry's review procedure violated his constitutional right to freedom of expression and denied students freedom of education. As the case wended its way through Japan's Byzantine court system over the next twenty-eight years, the central question evolved from whether it is proper to to teach Japanese children about what happened during WWII whether the Education Ministry can legally censor textbooks."

Results of incident

On March 16, 1992 Japan's Supreme Court ruled to uphold the censorship decision, furthermore the court maintained that "the government has the right to to decide educational content."

"Since Japanese high-schools all use the same textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education, the Supreme Court's ruling insures that the 'official censored version is the only one students will study in school.'"

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Record no 315