Posted on 06/13/2017 7:23:38 PM PDT by pboyington
University of Virginia student, Otto Warmbier, a prisoner for the last 17 months in the Orwellian hell hole, North Korea, is returning home to the United States…in a coma that he has been in for a year.
Warmbier, 23, was convicted of conducting “hostile acts against the DPRK.”
The so-called hostile act against North Korea committed by college student Warmbier, (who was travelling with a tour group called Young Pioneer Tours), was purloining a propaganda poster off the wall of the Yanggakdo Hotel in Pyongyang.
Stealing or harming a poster or other items with the name or image of one of North Korea’s past or present lunatic asylum leaders is considered a serious crime against the state.
On January 2, 2016, Warmbier was arrested while in the process of departing North Korea from the Pyongyang airport. The other guests in his tour group all left the country without incident.
On February 29, 2016, he “confessed” to stealing a piece of North Korean propaganda to take back to the United States as a “trophy” for someone from his home-town church who offered to pay him for it with the gift of a car worth $10,000.
On March 16, 2016, Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for committing what Warmbier thought was a harmless college prank.
Since Warmbier’s sentencing, the US State Department, through intermediaries in the Swedish government sought information concerning not only the state of Mr. Warmbier’s health, but the location of his detention.
Warmbier may very well have been held in one of the many prison camps that comprise the North Korean ‘gulag archipelago,’ harbor political prisoners and which are referred to as the Kwalliso.
The internment camps are located in central and northeastern North Korea. They comprise many prison labor colonies in secluded mountain valleys, completely isolated from the outside world.
The prisoners are forced to perform hard and dangerous slave work with primitive means in mining and agriculture. The food rations are very small, so that the prisoners are constantly on the brink of starvation. In combination with the hard work this leads to huge numbers of prisoners dying. An estimated 40% of prisoners die from malnutrition.
Moreover, many prisoners are crippled from work accidents, frostbite or torture. There is a rigid punishment in the camp. Prisoners who work too slowly or do not obey an order are beaten or tortured. In cases of stealing food or attempting to escape, the prisoners are publicly executed.
Whether Warmbier was actually in one of the Kwalliso is unknown. What is known is that he was apparently suffering from botulism while in captivity. The North Koreans claim that he slipped into a coma after he was given some type of sleeping pill.
Like everything else coming out of the North Korean government, this appears to be a complete lie. According to reports in the NY Times, quoting an anonymous intelligence source, Warmbier was apparently beaten by North Korean guards until he lapsed into unconsciousness and a coma.
His release on Tuesday, is the result of secret negotiations between US and North Korean officials in Oslo, Norway and New York.
Last week, US State Department personnel learned the truth about Mr. Warmbier’s grave condition, which North Korea had been hiding from the US for over a year. Demanding Mr. Warmbier be released, the North Koreans finally relented. A US delegation, including a medical team was dispatched yesterday to Pyongyang to bring him home.
Right now, Otto Warmbier is on his way to the United States, via Japan and Alaska. Upon landing in Ohio, he will be taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for evaluation and treatment.
Besides the question of what exactly happened to Mr. Warmbier while in captivity, there is the question of how the US government should respond to this outrage.
Simply put, the US cannot allow its citizens to be detained, imprisoned, tortured, beaten and murdered by hostile foreign governments. The US must respond to this outrageous human rights violation. But, what complicates any American response is the fact that North Korea still has three American citizens in captivity, detained under false pretense in the Stalinesque hermit kingdom.
If Mr. Warmbier dies, he will have been murdered by the North Korean regime and by its despotic ruler, Kim Jong-un, a man so psychotic that he has been dubbed, ‘Kim Squared’ by the North Korean Army, denoting that he is twice as crazy as his father and grandfather.
As I wrote before in The Tragic Fate of American Student Otto Warmbier, if you are a religious person, you might want to say a prayer for Otto Warmbier.
When you travel to a foreign country, you need to play by their rules. I have no soft spot for North Korea and yes, the sentence is ridiculous for the crime but he shouldn’t go to foreign countries to do illegal things. Bad boy. Glad he is coming home.
Agree with you 100%. I've lived overseas for the past 16yrs and I have followed the laws of the countries I have resided in.
He was stupid to travel there, and stupider for doing what he did. I still haven't heard much of why he thought traveling there was such a good idea.
As the saying goes; play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
What this stoopid did was inexcusable.
He tried to steel a poster.
Yes the punishment did not fit the crime.
But you should know the norks look for any excuse to propagandize against the evil Americans.
“be surprised if there isn’t reprisals for this (Trump, the counterpuncher)”
I certainly hope Trump does not retaliate for this. The young man’s Korean punishment was outrageous but he was in their country and disobeyed their law. The Korean leader is insane why would anyone expect anything but insanity?
According to Wikipedia Young Pioneer Tours’ motto is “providing budget travel to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from”.
The young man should have listened and heeded the wise advice within the YPT’s motto.
Where does it say he was communist
That is cold
It is because of this country’s anything goes that stuff like this happens
I could never wish this on anyone even pelosi
Respectfully disagree, it’s because this punks parents didn’t teach him to keep his hands off other people’s property. He made a conscious choice to take down that poster, it wasn’t America’s fault.
Otto is in a ‘vegetative’ state.... or as neuroscientists prefer to call this state of consciousness... “unresponsive wakefulness”.
n the vegetative state patients can open their eyelids occasionally and demonstrate sleep-wake cycles, but completely lack cognitive function. The vegetative state is also called a “coma vigil”. The chances of regaining awareness diminish considerably as the time spent in the vegetative state increases
No physical evidence of head trauma/beatings or mistreatment or body injuries mending....
Brain shows from MRI....extensive brain tissue loss....the likes of what is seen in pulmonary arrest.
Where did you hear he was a Communist? I think just a kid who did a stupid thing. Did not deserve to be beaten causing extensive neurological damage.
This absolutely infuriates the living hell out of me, he has severe brain damage announced today, vegetative state, responds to nothing. This kid was set up, he stole nothing and what did Obama do about it? NOTHING! An entire year he did nothing and in 5 months Trump gets him out. This should be headline news for the next month bashing the hell out of this COMMIE hellhole, but instead what does our media focus on? The Trump obstruction of justice hoax.
Thank you for a sense of reason. This should NEVER have happened.
A friend of mine who works in Washington heard that the Norks tested a gas on him as an experiment and it probably stopped his heart. Where they got that info I don’t know, but man oh man, this ticks me off to the moon, he’s basically got no brain left. All regions of his brain are severely damaged. This should be HEADLINE news all month, just really ramp up the heat on the Norks but instead what does the media focus on? The Trump/Russian/Obstruction of justice hoax, all day on the radio, that’s all I heard. Robert Mueller Robert Mueller Robert Mueller. One day after a leftist tried to massacre Republicans, and they go right back to pushing the hoax.
His parents said he was set up. He never stole anything and they made a fake video of him. I believe that more than I believe North Korea.
“According to Warmbier’s parents, the story about the poster was fabricated by authorities in order to detain him, and he was abducted at the airport when he was trying to leave the country.[2] A video purporting to show the theft was released by state-run Korean Central News Agency on March 18, 2016. In the 18-second low-resolution video, an unrecognizable figure removes the sign from the wall and places it on the floor, leaning against the wall. This action is shown twice, followed by a higher-resolution picture of the sign on the wall. The face of the person removing the poster is not seen during the video clip.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier
THIS needs to be put out of business, and this guy Gareth Johnson should have his ass sued off. They are CLEARLY taking advantage of naive kids who have no idea about the dangers of “touring” North Korea, the liberals idea of utopia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Pioneer_Tours
Trump likes Rodman
Rodman may have had something to do with Warmbier getting out
What American in their right mind would go to the hermit kingdom? Sorry but no sympathy here.
I watched Tucker Carlson’s interview with his fathet. I am so brokenhearted for this family.
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