A group of 167 political leaders and activists from Okinawa urged the central government Tuesday to retract the education ministry's instruction to publishers to remove references to the military's role in forcing civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa.
To gain support, they visited Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday for meetings with senior lawmakers of both the ruling and opposition camps.
They also asked five publishers of high school history textbooks to reinstate the deleted references and demanded the education ministry retract its instruction.