Presentation on Freedom Barometer Asia for young Korean liberals
What is Freedom Barometer Asia and what implication and lessons can Koreans draw from it? A special lecture was co-organized by the FNF Korea office and the Youth Forum for the Future on May 27 as a way to provide university students with opportunity to learn and discuss the answers.
The unusually heavy rainfall on the day did not prevent about 45 enthusiastic liberal-minded students from getting together in Shinchon, Seoul to attentively listen Mr. Miklos Romandy, one of the co-authors of the project of “Freedom Barometer Asia” from FNF Southeast and East Asia Regional Office based in Bangkok. The event was opened by Dr. Richter, Resident Representative FNF Korea and Ms. Bora Shin, President of the Youth Forum, who introduced their respective organization. The Youth Forum is a young NGO registered under the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, which aims to encourage young people to be more actively engaged in discussions of various social issues, such as globalization, market economy and liberal democracy.
After the introduction, Mr. Romandy explained details of the Freedom Barometer Asia; its objectives, three dimensions of freedom and employed indicators, different data sources as well as the overall ranking of evaluated countries with its level of freedom. Developed by the FNF Southeast and East Asian regional office since 2010 as a way to measure and to compare the level of freedom in 17 Asian countries, the barometer captures the notion of freedom from three important dimensions: political freedom, rule of law and economic freedom. Its results have been yearly published. According to the latest report, Korea’s overall level of freedom ranks the 5th out of the 17 countries. His presentation was followed by many questions from the floors, such as the reasons why Korea gains relatively low score on the independence of judiciary system in spite of well-established check and balance in the country and how Japan could achieve a high degree of economic freedom while it is known for the labor market rigidity.