The current economic downturn that has proverbially screwed most people in this country and abroad was pretty much ignored by most financial analysts (or at least downplayed). You would think that if someone saw it coming and spoke up about it, they would be considered an economic hero (or at the very least just a tiny bit psychic). That wasn’t the case for South Korean blogger Park Dae-sung, better known as Minerva online.
Minerva predicted the downfall of the economy on his immensely popular blog, even accurately foreseeing the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers. And what did he get for his public service? An indictment.
That’s right, apparently in South Korea taking about an economy going through a rough patch supposedly qualified as "spreading false information with the intent of harming the public interest" (You would think that a gigantic world-wide recession preventing people from putting kim-chi on the table would be slightly more damaging public moral, but clearly South Korea has different priorities).
This naturally caused widespread outcry from human rights groups, who said despite the fact that Minerva’s musings could possibly affect the money markets, his right to free speech was kinda more important. Luckily, once authorities tracked Minerva down a Seoul court found that there was no proof of malicious intent.
While Minerva’s victory has been seen as a victory for freedom of speech, his blog’s popularity has only increased. Not bad for an unemployed 31 year old who picked up his financial know-how from the Web and mail-order textbooks.
Check the original BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8007942.stm
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