To want to urge tourists to stay away from North Korea?

[marmiteisnice]

After what happened to Otto warmbier I think people should stay far, far away from nk. I understand people want to visit to experience their culture etc but why should we be spending money on a country who would rather us dead? They don't want us there they just want our dollar so to speak.

Well, I had no intention of going there, anyway.

It doesn't seem to be very popular in general. Never heard of anyone going there.

Quite different from Dubai, Turkey, and ... eh, well, loads of countries that are awful with regard to human rights.

I did a lot of backpacking in my youth. The thing is everyone is following the same route, doing the same things, carrying the same Lonely Planet. Everyone wants to go off the beaten track, do something different, try something new. People go to North Korea because it is something different and something a little dangerous. I think one of the package tour agencies have said they won't take American tourists now, but people will still go. Because they think it something cool to do.

I'm also not convinced of his guilt. Otto was very tall and thin. The proportions of the guy in the video seemed more Asian to me, longer torso and shorter legs. It's possible he was set up. We will never know though.

Even if Otto Warmbier did take the poster off the wall, what kind of country jails and then murders someone for doing this.

I could not believe the footage. Him desperately crying at the "trial", his unconscious body being carried off the plane, his mother collapsing. The whole thing was beyond cruel and tragic.

In a country like North Korea, propaganda is everything. Disrespecting a poster with the leader's name on it is a very serious crime. If a North Korean did that, they'd be sentenced to death. There's no evidence he was murdered by the North Koreans. No one knows how he ended up as he did. It could have been natural causes, it could have been a suicide attempt. It's an awful situation and I feel so bad for his friends and family but in my mind, it's kind of a freak event. Just a mixture of bad luck, bad timing, whatever, but a very rare and unusual thing to happen.

There's no evidence he was murdered by the North Koreans.

Well, if you mean is there a smoking gun, no there isn't, but there's equally no evidence he committed the 'crime'. There's also rather good evidence that he's dead and that North Korea lied about how and why.

There's no evidence he was murdered by the North Koreans

Yep, there really is.

OP, I'm sure you started this thread because you are very passionate about the subject and genuinely want to warn people against travelling there. But rather than being cross at the responses, maybe you could see that they indicate that the vast, vast majority of Westerners really have no desire or plans to go there?

Give JC a chance in power and UK could very well be NK, or Venezuala.

Your choice.

I once spent some time in a North Korean gulag. It was absolutely horrific.

Oh wait, no that was Pontins. I always get the two mixed up.

I can thoroughly recommend a book called Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Hardin, it's the true story of a man who was born in one of the labour camps in NK. Interesting, harrowing and almost unbelievable that regimes like the one in NK exist in the modern world.

SelenaValentina

Give JC a chance in power and UK could very well be NK, or Venezuala.
Your choice.

What an earth are you babbling on about?

Didn't you read their manifesto foodtime?
"Turn UK into NK" was the general thrust. The section on "sending the middle class to gulags" was right after the section on making possession of a Corbyn poster mandatory and right before the section on "the capitalist western dogs will tremble before the mighty nuclear arsenal of our most esteemed and fragrant supreme leader"

Give JC a chance in power and UK could very well be NK, or Venezuala.
Your choice.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahaha

....I can't even

Yep, there really is.

Then how was he killed?

The American doctors found no sign of torture or beating. Another American who had been jailed in North Korea and later released said that he was not harmed or tortured in any physical way (obviously the psychological burden was very great) and he felt that American prisoners were treated much better than North Korean prisoners.

Otto had been in that state for about 18 months, so there was no way to tell for certain if he had had botulism or not. His family refused an autopsy.

North Korea has held American prisoners before and holds (I believe) 3 now, but none of them have been killed.

It's a mystery. No one know how he ended up how he ended up. Perhaps the North Koreans themselves don't even know.

Lying about what happened is not an admission of guilt.

It's a very weird and unusual situation. Yes, the North Korean regime is brutal and awful, but that still doesn't mean that he was murdered. We simply don't have enough information so it will forever remain a mystery.