Against Revision of History Textbooks

Recently, the struggle of the various circles of south Korean people is on a high tide against the government designated history textbooks.

The south Korean authorities try to change the authorized school history textbooks into the government designated textbooks.

In a word, their purpose is to cover up historic crimes stained with the pro-Japanese sycophancy and dictatorship and make new generation as necessary tools to keep their power.

Noting that they refuse the textbooks that would undermine the democracy and distort the history, pupils of “Youth against the ‘Government Designated Textbooks’” on October 11 held a press conference in Seoul to launch a campaign against the authorities’ maneuvers with the united might of the pupils.

On October 12, the Network on Interdiction from Government Designated Textbooks including 466 organizations including the  Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union held a press conference in Seoul to insist that the forcing single textbook infringes on freedom of expression and academic freedom. They noted that they will lodge autograph album of 70, 000 people to Cheongwadae.

Despite the strong opposition of various circles of society, if the authorities enforce the designated textbooks, they would meet the resistance and protest as the democratization movement in 1987, a civic organization in Sejong warned.

On that day, Lee Jong-geol, the floor leader and other assemblymen of Alliance for New Politics and Democracy held a meeting at the national assembly to urge the government to cancel the designation textbooks.

Denouncing that the textbooks embellish the Japanophiles and distort the history through a letter of protest, they demanded the canceling by the Ministry of Education and the apology of Park Geun-hye.

The head of the party criticized that the government designation textbooks put forward by the ruling forces are the anachronism for the purpose of beautifying the sympathy with Japan as modernization, praising the dictatorship as democracy and adulating the regime.

The south Korean authorities should cancel the textbooks for staying in power and returning to power without delay and listen to the voice of the various circles demanding the democracy in the society and stabilization of the people's livelihood.