Poor Otto. NK wouldn’t even let him get that GOAT book deal.
US student is sentenced to 15 years hard labor in North Korea for trying to steal a political banner
Since it hasn’t been said yet…
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
-Starhammer-
The CIA must have it hard finding new guys then.
Who would hire a crying bitch when they get caught?
Actually…
…
And yes, if you’ve followed anything of any covert government agencies … All content is disavowed.
Seems way more likely that he got sick over there and they didn’t know what to do with him. NK has been detaining Americans for years now and they’ve never (physically) tortured them and have always sent them back in one piece, no reason for them to switch things up now.
NK claims he got botulism, but the doctors that have looked over him say there’s no signs of that. If the family submits him for an autopsy, we’ll probably fined out for certain what caused it.
sheeeit, I’m a bit suspicious of things when I hear of stories like this… on one hand, I think-- surely someone can’t be that stupid as to say “heh, let’s go to NORTH KOREA for Spring Break!” or whatever vacation time… then again, we hear of unbelievably stupid behavior in the news all the time…so perhaps it’s possible that this was exactly the case; some asshole thought it would be funny at the time like “LOL I’m goin’ to North Korea, guys…”, and ultimately learned the hard way that certain “zany” situations and ideas you might see in a comedy movie don’t usually end well in real life.
I still can’t get over just the initial question of “why” with shit like this— like what kind of fool decides to go THERE of all places? …presumably for fun and good times…? It’s unbelievable, man.
…makes me wonder if there’s some dope right now thinking “hey guysssss…let’s go to SUDAN for 2 weeks…it’ll be awesome, bro, trust me LOL”
Yeah, with a goal to steal a poster or some shit. Why did he care about taking that, and why did he have the balls to it?
I wonder if his facebook and twitter were full of references to the interview
You’re unbelievably stupid
Yea he flew across the world.to steal a poster. That was his master plan.
Fucking christ.
All you fucking dudes taking a position of superiority and poking fun at the kid are garbage people.
For fucks sake he was 21, he made a dumb mistake like I’m sure most of you have, and now he’s dead.
Nobody is sounding particularly tough to me with this “pay your white privilege consequences” to me. Shit ain’t funny at all. Keep fighting the good fight from behind your desktop and a bag of doritos.
I mean I’m sorry for his friends and family he died buuuuuut:
I remember when I was 21 and I attempted to steal property from one of the most fascist and regressive countries in the 21st century. Kids will be kids, when will you people understand?
There’s making mistakes then there’s fucking up.
Making mistakes is petty theft in the US. Small fine if you get caught, road sign on your wall if you don’t.
Fucking up is thinking the same thing flies in other countries. This kid would’ve gotten his hand chopped off in the Middle East if he had done this there. If he was North Korean, he would’ve been publicly executed or actually put into a prison camp.
@thurst is right, his treatment there was par for the course for the foreign prisoners, because North Korea view them as bargaining chips for aid. Even the medical examiners in Ohio–who could’ve easily saw this as an opportunity to propagate pro-American and anti-Communist sentiment–said there were zero signs of abuse, but only casted doubts on the botulism claims.
He died, but what he got in North Korea was regal treatment compared to what a North Korean would’ve gotten for the same crime. And the Middle East would’ve given no fucks what race/nationality he was, kid would’ve come over here looking like Cap’n Hook. And I guess everyone forgot about that kid who got caned in Singapore for spraypainting a car.
Seriously, US/Canadian laws are pretty damn lax compared to the same laws on the same crimes in the rest of the world. Stop acting like being western-bred makes for invincibility cloaks in the rest of the world.
What a shithole country. I don’t see why anyone would want to visit it.
Sad news that he died. I don’t know why anyone would WANT to visit NK other than to reaffirm that living practically anywhere else is amazing, but if Otto was in fact a Christian missionary, they aren’t the smartest people. I used to have friends that bragged about doing missionary trips to China when owning a christian bible would land you in prison or worse.
That said, NK needs to be checked hard. Like, it wouldn’t be a shame if Kim got assassinated. His ruling does no one any good at all and if he were to catch some lead, NK would probably see a renaissance like you wouldn’t believe and start producing more than just lulz on an international “Aww isn’t that cute, they got missiles” level, assuming someone reasonable took over.
Erroneous. China could give two fucks about religion, and allow foreigners there (as well as Chinese) the right to practice said religion. Bibles are never considered an issue, there are bookstores that sell them without getting slammed by the government, even Taobao sellers have them on offer.
The issue that China has is foreigners evangelizing their citizens, out of fear that foreign Christian influence will be strongly anti-government and nudge people toward overthrowing the government. They put restrictions on churches where Chinese churches can’t have foreigners present, and foreign churches can only have Chinese present if they have foreign identification or are married to a foreigner. And yes, they do check.
Are missionaries risking their lives over it? Yeah. But are they risking their lives by simply owning a Bible in China? Absolutely not.
North Korea on the other hand…
^^ Yup. 21. He was just a stupid college kid.
Kid’s do stupid things. That’s what they do. They think they know what life is like but, they’re full of shit.
He didn’t deserve to die for it.
He was a 21 year old college kid for fucks sake. He obviously was too young and stupid to realize the gravity of what he’d done. Especially in some foreign country with insanely strict laws. Just the fact that he was interested in taking a trip to some shithouse like North Korea to begin with, is proof enough that he was young, naive and had a lot to learn.
You act as if this shit is common knowledge. I’m 34 and don’t know jack shit about Korea either. Toss me in there and i’m sure i’m bound to mess things up and have them pissed at me too, for some custom or regulation i don’t know about.
Stop acting like some all-knowing douchebag. Let’s throw your ass in Korea for a month and see how long YOU last before you get the law pissed at you.
The same reason why everyone in this day and age does something stupid… For the lulz.