North Korea has sentenced an American student, 21 who admitted stealing a propaganda banner from a hotel to 15 years and hard labour. Observers said the harsh sentence was likely a reflection of soaring military tensions on the Korean peninsula following the North’s nuclear test.
Pyongyang has maintained a daily barrage of nuclear strike threats against both Seoul and Washington, over the ongoing South Korea-US military drills that the North perceives as provocative rehearsals for an invasion.
The United States has no diplomatic or consular relations with the North. The Swedish embassy in Pyongyang provides limited consular services to US citizens detained there. The US State Department “strongly recommends against all travel” to North Korea and specifically warns of the risk of arrest. Human Rights Watch said the severe sentence was shocking given that Warmbier’s alleged offence amounted to little more than a “college-style prank”.
“Pyongyang should recognize this student’s self-admitted mistake and release him on humanitarian grounds,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the rights watchdog’s Asia Division. Detained foreigners are often required to make a public, officially-scripted acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and Warmbier was paraded in front of reporters and diplomats in Pyongyang last month. Footage of the carefully orchestrated event showed a sobbing Warmbier pleading to be released and saying he had made “the worst mistake of my life”. Warmbier said he had been tasked with stealing the banner by a member of the Friendship United Methodist Church in Wyoming, Ohio, who wanted it “as a trophy” and offered him a used car worth $10,000 if he succeeded.
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