Academics on Friday sent a letter of protest to the education ministry over the leak of a draft of a controversial history textbook.

They complained that the release was in violation of a 2002 regulation prohibiting publishers from distributing advance copies of textbooks still being screened by the ministry.

The junior high school history text in question was the work of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, a group of nationalists.

Critics complain the text downplays Japan's wartime aggression in Asia.

Nobuyoshi Takashima, a sociology professor at the University of the Ryukyus, and Satoshi Uesugi, lecturer at Kansai University, said they had been tipped off by education officials in Tokyo, Saitama, Kyoto and Wakayama prefectures that drafts were circulating.

The group urged the ministry to promptly ascertain whether Fusosha Publishing Inc. had distributed the text. If so, the group demanded the textbook be withdrawn from review.

Early release was banned after the text's authors sought media restraints because of controversy that arose after critics attacked an earlier draft.

``It appears there was an attempt to gain preferential treatment during textbook selection (for coming school years) by distributing the draft textbooks early,'' Uesugi told a news conference in Tokyo.

Uesugi said the book was ``filled with mistakes and warped views of history.'' He pointed to a passage that says there are ``various questionable points in the records'' of the 1937 Nanking Massacre.

``We hope the ministry will not permit this to continue,'' Uesugi added.

A Fusosha official refused to comment, saying the textbook is under review.

The textbook was first given authorization for use in schools in April 2001 after its authors had revised 137 entries.(IHT/Asahi: March 12,2005)