December 16, 2005

Japan's High Court Upholds Censorship

By ALAN BRENDER

The Japanese Supreme Court this month rejected an appeal by a professor at the University of the Ryukyus, in Okinawa, seeking damages from the government for censorship of a textbook that he helped write in 1993. Observers see the ruling as upholding the education ministry's right to screen and alter textbooks. The ministry's screening of textbooks aroused anti-Japanese rioting in China this year after Japanese education officials released a list of approved textbooks that the Chinese viewed