Many people are expecting that foreigners will again be able to perform in Korea as restrictions due to COVID-19 have been recently eased. If a foreigner wants to perform in Korea, there is a foreigner performance recommendation system that requires a recommendation from the Korea Media Rating Board. If a foreigner performs without a recommendation, he/she will be sentenced to up to two years in prison or a fine of up to 20 million won. However, it is pointed out that such a performance recommendation system infringes on foreigners' right to express themselves and raises issues of equity between foreigners and Koreans. The government should improve the foreign performance recommendation system.
Article 6 Paragraph 1 of the Public Performance Act stipulates that “foreigners who wish to perform in Korea or those who wish to perform by inviting foreigners to Korea must receive a recommendation from the Korea Media Rating Board.” The Korea Media Rating Board is entrusted with the task of issuing a recommendation letter for the issuance of entry visas for foreign performers from the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. In order for a foreigner to perform in Korea, a recommendation letter is issued by the Korea Media Rating Board and an entry visa can be applied for. However, it turned out that the criteria for judging these performances were unclear. According to the data submitted by the Korea Media Rating Board on October 3rd, 2021, vague criteria such as “pitch instability”, “lack of breath at the end”, and “lack of singing ability” are being evaluated as reasons for not recommending the performance. These standards often involve the subjective opinion of the evaluator and can lead to overregulation of foreigners’ expressions as the standards are unclear. It may excessively restrict or infringe the right of expression of foreigners. In addition, Article 21 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea guarantees freedom of the press and publication, and does not allow permission or censorship. If those who wish to invite foreigners to perform are Koreans, they are also citizens with the right of freedom of press and publication. However, since the recommendation system actually functions as a preliminary deliberation, it can be seen that it falls under the censorship prohibited by our Constitution. This is a violation of the freedom of the press and publication. Besides, the foreign performance recommendation system raises issues of equity. In the case of Korean performances, the recommendation system does not apply. The only expression for which the compulsory recommendation system applies is a performance by a foreigner. To solve these problems, the government should improve and clearly define the screening standards for performances, and furthermore, it is necessary to find a new system as the foreign performance recommendation system is inconsistent with fairness and may infringe on the freedom of the press and publication.
The foreigner performance recommendation system is not appropriate when we look at various issues such as infringement of foreigners' right to expression and issues of equity. Accordingly, the Korea Media Rating Board should make efforts to prevent excessive restrictions on foreigners' right to express themselves by clearly re-regulating the ambiguous evaluation criteria. Because it also causes the problem of infringement of freedom of the press, it is necessary to find a new system that does not. The foreign performance recommendation system, which has problems in various aspects, must be improved.