Eight residents of Tokyo's Suginami Ward filed a lawsuit Thursday demanding that the ward rescind its adoption of a contentious, revisionist history textbook for junior high schools, citing considerable irregularities in the selection process.
The lawsuit filed with the Tokyo District Court concerns the Japanese history textbook authored by nationalist scholars that critics say gloss over Japan's wartime atrocities.
The plaintiffs cited how a school principal tampered with a report in which teachers had commented negatively on the textbook before passing it on to the local board of education, which on Aug. 12 adopted the book for use at schools in the academic year beginning April 1.
They are also demanding 1,000 yen per plaintiff in compensation because they claim their children are being denied the education they seek.
The Suginami board of education said, "The adoption of the textbook was done appropriately and in conformity with the law and other regulations."
The textbook -- edited mainly by members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Fusosha Publishing Inc. -- has drawn flak in Japan and abroad by those who perceive it as whitewashing Japan's past militarism and justifying its conquest of Asia in the early 20th century.
Only a handful of schools have adopted the text for use in the upcoming school year, but it received considerable media attention last year during the screening process.