S.Korean NGOs Ally Against Japanese Textbook IssueSouth Korea's civic and human rights organizations formed an alliance Monday for a systematic and long-term protest against the Japanese textbook issue.Representatives from 59 non-governmental organizations declared the establishment of "Movement for Korea-Japan Textbook Rectification". "The organization is aimed at implementing more systematic and long-term strategies over the textbook issue," said the movement in a statement. The organization said it will urge the South Korean government to take a sterner position on the issue while studying history textbooks in use in South Korea and Japan to correct distorted sections in history. It will edit auxiliary textbooks on the two countries' shared history and stage a signature-collection campaign together with civic groups in Japan to protest the book's approval and it will also seek a joint action with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China. "The Japanese textbook issue will persist as long as right-wing historians exist in the country. We will gather the forces of NGOs and continue a variety of efforts to write the true history of Korea and Japan," said the alliance. The Japanese Ministry of Education early this month approved a eight middle school history textbooks which distort or beautify Japan's atrocities in wartime last century, causing strong outrage from all walks of life in South Korea. |
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