Freedom Barometer Asia: South Korea remains No. 5 out of 17 countries
The Youth Forum for the Future and FriedrichNaumann Foundation (FNF) organized a special lecture by Miklos Romandy on May26th. He came all the way from Bangkok, where he works as Project Coordinatorfor South East and East Asia in our foundation's regional office, to presentthe Freedom Barometer Asia in Seoul. After last year's successful premiere,again more than 40 guests attended the event in order to find out which Asiancountries have progressed or regressed in respect to freedom.
Ms. Yoonhee Lee, Director of the YouthForum, and Dr. Lars-André Richter, Resident Representative of FNF Korea,welcomed the guests and briefly introduced their organizations. The Youth Forumis a young NGO registered under the Ministry of Security and PublicAdministration, which aims to encourage young people to be more activelyengaged in discussions of various social issues, such as globalization, marketeconomy and liberal democracy.
Mr. Romandy started a dialogue with the studentsand asked for their definition of freedom before he explained details of theFreedom Barometer Asia. It is an assessment of political freedom, the rule oflaw, and economic freedom in 17 countries in Asia. The degree of politicalfreedom is measured based on the criteria of free and fair elections, theabsence of unconstitutional veto players, and the freedom of the press. Interms of the rule of law, the Barometer comprises the following threevariables: Independence of the judiciary, levels of corruption, and the extentto which human rights are protected. The variables making up the assessment ofeconomic freedom are: Security of property rights; the size of government; theregulation of credit, labour, and business; and, the freedom to tradeinternationally.
As in the years before Japan tops the ranking ofthe freest countries in Southeast and East Asia, followed by Hong Kong andTaiwan. Singapore and South Korea trail them rather closely. It came as nosurprise that North Korea staunchly defends its position at the very bottom ofthe Barometer’s ranking. It scores a paltry 1.85 out of 100 points. The fullreport can be accessed at www.freedombarometer.org
After the presentation, participants took theopportunity to ask many questions, not only about the Freedom BarometerAsia but also about FNF's activities in North Korea, which were previouslyoutlined by Dr. Richter.
