And exonerate the travel company who claimed "North Korea Is ‘Extremely Safe!"

These days i just dont know what to believe when it comes to stuff like that

Leading western tourism provider for young adventurers agrees: DPRK is safest and most wholesome destination for foreign students and youth.

Link to tweet

If your mother would rather you didn't go, there's probably a good reason.

Is one who cares enough about you that you should definitely listen to her.

On any subject.

You too can learn what hard labor means in the DPRK. If you live through it.

Just my comment. Young Pioneer Tours' record isn't so good right now.

But these are budget tours. Maybe the full price tours do not include the prison system. Wonder if that answer is in Young Pioneer Tours FAQ.

The "gentleman" who leads NK is a "smart cookie"

I'm not going to bother linking.

sadness I cannot comprehend.

Tortured to death just for stealing a stupid propaganda poster. Maybe an autopsy could reveal more about what might have happened to him. North Koreans are already raised to believe that Americans are evil incarnate; there's no telling what kind of hell he went through.

Brain tissue once it died, does not recover.
It was impossible to fix that.

They didn't deserve this nightmare. What a horrible thing to happen to their son and to them. It was all so totally needless. The cruelty visited on Otto and his family is too vile for words.

They handed him over as he was about to die. This is not about the healthcare system

Your post is simple ridiculous.

Drive by stupidity post!

There are plenty of legitimate failings in the US health care system. This isn't one of them.

I guess you think he received quality care and treatment there and just accidentally ended up in a coma?

He had severe brain damage with large areas of brain tissue dead, from what doctors said.
It is impossible to fix that.

remember this post forever idiot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a propaganda "trophy" and $200,000 to his mom if he didnt come back.

Wonder if the a-h paid up or if they think because his body came back they dont owe mom some $$$. He & his family was struggling financially - theres your motives. People struggling financially often do dumb dangerous things for no other reason than someone will pay them $$$ for it.

Not that it doesn't sound plausible but I hope it isn't true as it casts an extremely sinister light on a tragedy that's horrible enough already.


...........
Never mind, I found it in a June 13 Time story:

Before his trial, Warmbier had said he tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church. That would be grounds in North Korea for a subversion charge. He identified the church as Friendship United Methodist Church.
North Korea announced Warmbier's arrest in late January 2016, saying he committed an anti-state crime with "the tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation." Warmbier had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel. It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.
In a tearful statement made before his trial, Warmbier told a gathering of reporters in Pyongyang he was offered a used car worth $10,000 if he could get a propaganda banner and was also told that if he was detained and didn't return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in the form of a charitable donation.
Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was "suffering from very severe financial difficulties."

http://time.com/4816207/otto-warmbier-north-korea-release/
...................

Very strange.

How awful. What did they do to him? I'm just at a loss of words...horrible.

Prayers to his family and may he now rest in peace.

Sad to hear, but this needs to drive home a point.... STOP TRAVELING INTO AREAS OF THE WORLD WHERE YOU RE NOT LIKED OR WELCOME. Ok, yes, I can hear the "hey, I have a right to go where I please people" saying this, but when you get captured and used as a political pawn, OUR GOVERNMENT are the ones who need to come get you, or your family has to pony up millions...

what he did in traveling to North Korea was beyond foolish in the first place. North Korea is not a country to play around with. The odds are always stacked against you if you travel someplace like that. And to try to "steal" a political poster was beyond stupid. That might be treated like a college prank in the US but he was not in the US. I am not trying to say the North Koreans are not at fault but we all know that the whole incident was totally avoidable in the first place.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to travel to Egypt and Jordan (before the Arab Spring). The first thing that we were told when we arrived in each country was to not try to take any antiquity out of the country. This is something that would land you in prison. We were always advised on the cultural points, including receiving advice on who to dress the next day based upon our itinerary and location. Clothing advice was always given out with an explanation which, if listened to, provided a good reason on why the advice was handed out.

The night before we left Petra to had back to Amman (to fly back to Cairo the next evening) we were reminded that we would be visiting an important Christian church on the way back and that Amman was a very conservative city. Women were advised to not wear shorts and tank tops or sun dresses. There were two young girls with us just out of college. Apparently no one was going to tell them how to dress and they showed up at breakfast wearing skimpy sun dresses. I thought - will this should be an interesting day. At one point during the day our guide, driver and armed guard held a conversation in Arabic. I may not speak Arabic but I am pretty sure that I could tell you what they were talking about. They were worried about whether or not they could make it to the Airport and pass us over to the Tour Company Rep before disaster struck.

They lucked out, they managed to pass us onto the Tour Company Rep before disaster struck - at the Airport. When you arrive at the airport you put all your stuff on the conveyor belt for scanning. Men go through the normal screening and women step aside to go through an area curtained off for examination by a female security agent. If all is well, you grab your stuff, go to the airline counter, check in and wait for your flight.

If all does not go well, all your belongings are hauled to a table and the security guards will go through everything with the proverbial fine toothed comb. Guess which option the girls faced? All of a sudden one of the guards lifted something out of a suitcase and the started talking to one another. They turned to the girls and started to accuse them of trying to take an antiquity out of the country. Remember I mentioned earlier that this was not a good idea and cold land you in prison? Another guy in our group was an American attorney and even though he did not specialize in international law he went over to assist the girls. So the attorney and the Tour Company Rep are working their pants off to get the girls released, off the hook and allowed to leave the country. It was like watching a train wreck. We didn't know if they would be allowed to leave with us. Do I think that they actually were trying to take an antiquity out of the country? Most likely not but they weren't the brightest bulbs in the tulip patch so I wouldn't say that there were 100% in the clear. Finally the guards released them and they were allowed to leave the country. I think that the guards were offended by how the girls were dressed and they took it out on them with the full weight of their office. The girls were foolish and if they had exhibited more common sense the whole thing could have been avoided.

I've traveled in China. It's relatively safe for Americans.

While in China, he saw a tour group taking tourists to North Korea, which Chinese citizens can travel there easily all the time. But not a good idea for US citizens. That was where his life went down the wrong road. But I know Americans who have gone to NK for diplomatic/foreign service work and lived to tell about it. Removing a propaganda poster or even saying something bad about their government is a very dangerous thing to do in a country that has no 1st amendment.

It sounds Otto liked to live dangerously. The Warmbiers are Jewish and Otto has gone to Israel recently on Birthright.