Anchor: A group of U.S. historians has expressed dismay over the Japanese government’s attempts to change passages about Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in history textbooks in Japan, the U.S. and elsewhere. They stressed that no government should have the right to "censor history."
Our Bae Joo-yon has more.
Report: A group of American historians have issued a joint statement, protesting the Japanese government’s pressuring of publishing companies and historians to change the results of their research on Japan’s wartime sexual slavery.
The statement, titled "Standing with Historians of Japan,” is set to appear in the March edition of the "Perspectives of History," the official publication of the American Historical Association.
The statement specifically noted that Japan's Foreign Ministry instructed its New York Consulate General last November to ask U.S.-based publisher McGraw-Hill Education to modify depictions of wartime sex slavery in one of its world history textbooks.
The historians said they are dismayed “at recent attempts by the Japanese government to suppress statements in history textbooks both in Japan and elsewhere about the euphemistically named 'comfort women'.
The scholars, who are members of the American Historical Association, noted that the victims suffered under a brutal system of sexual exploitation in the service of the Japanese imperial army during World War II.
Among the 19 scholars who issued the statement, University of Connecticut Professor Alexis Dudden told KBS that historians have already combed archives and interviewed victims and perpetrators to confirm the essential features of a system that amounted to state-sponsored sexual slavery.
[Sound bite: Alexis Dudden – Professor of History at the University of Connecticut (English)]
“This is something that's now an internationally recognized history. So, we felt particular responsibility to standing up for something we regard as part of world history.”
Dr. Dudden and her colleagues stressed in the statement that they practice and produce history to learn from the past and they “therefore oppose the efforts of states or special interests to pressure publishers or historians to alter the results of their research for political purposes.”
They blamed the Japanese government for attempting to eliminate references to its wartime sexual slavery in school textbooks as part of its effort to promote patriotic education.
The joint statement expressed support for authors and publishers and for others who “have worked to bring to light the facts about this and other atrocities of World War II.”
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.
