US Citizen Otto Warmbier, returned from North Korea, has died

[Vixen]

The sad news on the US student, Otto Warmbier, returned home to his family, is that he has died. He was jailed in North Korea for a prank and sent back to the USA in a coma, after 15 months of his sentence, with brain trauma.

Otto Warmbier, 22, returned to the US last Tuesday, but it emerged he had been in a coma for a year.
North Korea said botulism led to the coma, but a team of US doctors who assessed him dispute this account.
Mr Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for attempting to steal a propaganda sign from a hotel.
He had suffered severe brain damage, and was medically evacuated from North Korea on 13 June to a hospital in his home city of Cincinnati. Ohio. It is unclear how he fell ill.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40335169

What sanctions can be taken, if any?

 

[Hungry81]

The sad news on the US student, Otto Warmbier, returned home to his family, is that he has died. He was jailed in North Korea for a prank and send back to the USA in a coma, after 18 months of his sentence, with brain trauma.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40335169

What sanctions can be taken, if any?

How about

1 Don't visit North Korea

2 If you do, don't be a dick, as the punishment for being a dick is having your life destroyed.

2a Just because you're not being a dick, it does not mean the government will not make an example of you, as you are an evil depraved westerner.

2b by visiting North Korea as a tourist you are providing direct monetary support for an oppressive evil regime, so visiting North Korea may automatically make you a dick.

3 Goto 1

 

[theprestige]

How about

1 Don't visit North Korea

2 If you do, don't be a dick, as the punishment for being a dick is having your life destroyed.

2a Just because you're not being a dick, it does not mean the government will not make an example of you, as you are an evil depraved westerner.

2b by visiting North Korea as a tourist you are providing direct monetary support for an oppressive evil regime, so visiting North Korea may automatically make you a dick.

3 Goto 1

This sounds oddly similar to the lecture I'm always giving to young women, about not dressing slutty or accepting drinks from strangers at parties. It's a great lecture for right after they trot out some sob story about being date raped.

 

[Vixen]

How about

1 Don't visit North Korea

2 If you do, don't be a dick, as the punishment for being a dick is having your life destroyed.

2a Just because you're not being a dick, it does not mean the government will not make an example of you, as you are an evil depraved westerner.

2b by visiting North Korea as a tourist you are providing direct monetary support for an oppressive evil regime, so visiting North Korea may automatically make you a dick.

3 Goto 1

That's a bit harsh, old chum.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

He was jailed in North Korea for a prank

It wasn't a prank, it was theft. And not just any theft. No doubt he stole the banner so he could use it to ridicule North Korea. A thief and a dick.

This sounds oddly similar to the lecture I'm always giving to young women, about not dressing slutty or accepting drinks from strangers at parties.

Or like the lecture I give to kids not to climb over the fence and pet the lions at the zoo.

North Korea is a foreign country with different laws to ours. Some of those laws may seem pretty harsh to us, but only an idiot would deliberately disobey them. And it's not like he didn't know that theft is a crime.

 

[Dumb All Over]

2 If you do, don't be a dick, as the punishment for being a dick is having your life destroyed.

Literally.

2b by visiting North Korea as a tourist you are providing direct monetary support for an oppressive evil regime, so visiting North Korea may automatically make you a dick.

Dennis Rodman?

 

[dudalb]

The kid was dumb,but in the end the North Korean Regime was the guilty party, and that people are trying to let Dear Leader off the hook for this is a little disturbing.

 

[Vixen]

It wasn't a prank, it was theft. And not just any theft. No doubt he stole the banner so he could use it to ridicule North Korea. A thief and a dick.

Or like the lecture I give to kids not to climb over the fence and pet the lions at the zoo.

North Korea is a foreign country with different laws to ours. Some of those laws may seem pretty harsh to us, but only an idiot would deliberately disobey them. And it's not like he didn't know that theft is a crime.

Everybody is allowed to make a mistake. So he did something stupid.

A callow youth aged 22 takes a souvenir of a North Korea banner and is caught.

You don't think 15 years hard labour and being reduced to a brain-damage coma, caused by respiratory trauma, within a month of the sentence before being sent home near death's door 15 months later, is cruel and unusual punishment?

 

[TragicMonkey]

It wasn't a prank, it was theft. And not just any theft. No doubt he stole the banner so he could use it to ridicule North Korea. A thief and a dick.

Or like the lecture I give to kids not to climb over the fence and pet the lions at the zoo.

North Korea is a foreign country with different laws to ours. Some of those laws may seem pretty harsh to us, but only an idiot would deliberately disobey them. And it's not like he didn't know that theft is a crime.

So, you're buying the story NK gave out?

 

[dudalb]

The sad news on the US student, Otto Warmbier, returned home to his family, is that he has died. He was jailed in North Korea for a prank and sent back to the USA in a coma, after 15 months of his sentence, with brain trauma.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40335169

What sanctions can be taken, if any?

We already have just about every sanction on North Korea you can have because of their past bad behavior. And it does nothing to change their behavior.

 

[dudalb]

So, you're buying the story NK gave out?

I wonder if some people are not so afraid of war breaking out with North Korea that they are adapting a "We must not do anything to offend them" attitude.

Screw that. the North Korean Regime is a cruel,corrupt, barbaric regime and Dear Leader is somebody the world would be better off without.

 

[Dumb All Over]

We already have just about every sanction on North Korea you can have. And it does nothing to change their behavior.

Which ones are we missing?

 

[TragicMonkey]

I wonder if some people are not so afraid of war breaking out with North Korea that they are adapting a "We must not do anything to offend them" attitude.

Screw that. the North Korean Regime is a cruel,corrupt, barbaric regime and Dear Leader is somebody the world would be better off without.

I mean the whole "that kid tried to steal a banner" story. I doubt that, or anything even like it, ever happened at all. NK wanted to grab an American, so they did. And they made up a story they imagined, in their jaundiced and literally insane view of the world, would sound likely. Signs? Churches? Suuuuuure.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

I mean the whole "that kid tried to steal a banner" story. I doubt that, or anything even like it, ever happened at all. NK wanted to grab an American, so they did. And they made up a story they imagined, in their jaundiced and literally insane view of the world, would sound likely. Signs? Churches? Suuuuuure.

I seem to recall coming across a video showing him trying to pull something off the wall, so there may be something to it.

 

[dudalb]

Which ones are we missing?

I don't know, I just put that in if there is some small sanction we have overlooked. North Korea is pretty much treated, quite rightely, as a pariah nation by the US.has been for some time,but the North Koreans don't seem to care.

 

[newyorkguy]

...that people are trying to let Dear Leader off the hook for this is a little disturbing.

But not at all surprising.

 

[Vixen]

So the sanctimonious among us have:

- never taken a souvenir from a hotel (soap, shampoo, towel, even)

- refrained from nicking a road sign with 'Abbey Road' or 'Penny Lane', if given the opportunity

- never taken a whole handful (or entire bowlful) of mint sweets at the end of an Indian meal as soon as the waiters take their eyes off you

- never not left a 'suggested donation of £5' when visiting a museum or art gallery?

 

[Dumb All Over]

So the sanctimonious among us have:

- never taken a souvenir from a hotel (soap, shampoo, towel, even)

- refrained from nicking a road sign with 'Abbey Road' or 'Penny Lane', if given the opportunity

- never taken a whole handful (or entire bowlful) of mint sweets at the end of an Indian meal as soon as the waiters take their eyes off you

- never not left a 'suggested donation of £5' when visiting a museum or art gallery?

Not in North Korea I haven't.

 

[Ziggurat]

I seem to recall coming across a video showing him trying to pull something off the wall, so there may be something to it.

I don't recall that. Can anybody track it down?

 

[Meadmaker]

North Korea is a foreign country with different laws to ours. Some of those laws may seem pretty harsh to us,

They don't seem harsh to me. They seem evil.