Some 200 Japanese and South Koreans filed a lawsuit in Tokyo on Thursday against the ruling party and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, saying that their alleged intervention in adoption of controversial textbooks have caused the plaintiffs psychological pain, Kyodo News reported.

The plaintiffs, a group of 139 Japanese and 54 South Koreans, filed the case with the Tokyo District Court and demanded damages and an apology advertisement from the Liberal Democratic Party and Abe.

The suit took issue with last year's adoption by a handful of local authorities for use in junior high schools of textbooks on history and social studies authored by academics with a nationalist bent published by Fusosha Publishing Inc.

When the textbook was adopted, Abe was the secretary general of a society of young lawmakers pondering matters on the future of Japan and history education.

According to the plaintiffs, the society of lawmakers politically intervened in the screening and adoption of textbooks in violation of the Fundamental Law on Education by exerting pressure on the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

"The contents of Fusosha Publishing's textbooks are against the spirit of the Constitution and we consequently suffered pain," they are quoted as saying.

According to Kyodo, 275 people filed a similar lawsuit with the Matsuyama District Court.

The textbooks, chiefly authored by members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, are widely criticized for glossing over Japan's aggression and colonial ruling in Asia.

Source: Xinhua