Otto Warmbier Punishment: Disturbing Amount Of Americans Seem Okay With It

Otto Warmbier said it best when he uttered the words, “I have made the worst mistake of my life.”

That confession came in the shadow of an overboard, though not entirely shocking, criminal sentence of 15 years hard labor in a North Korean prison camp.

His crime: stealing a state-sponsored propaganda sign while a tourist in the dictatorial country.

A disputed account from Otto Warmbier said that he had taken the sign because it was an initiation to the Z Society, a not-so-secret secret club at the University of Virginia where the 21-year-old attended college.

The Z Society claimed they had nothing to do with such a challenge, according to ABC News.

Whether they did or did nott is immaterial at this point. Otto Warmbier is going away for a long time, to conditions that are unlike anything he or most Americans will ever experience.

An NBC News interview with a survivor from one of North Korea’s notorious camps, share his experiences.

“At Jungeori [prison], there was no sense of being human, if you thought you were a human being, you couldn’t live there,” said Hyuk Kim in comments to the site. “You were like an animal. You do the hard labor you were ordered to do, that’s it. No thinking. No free will. Just fear.”

Kim said food becomes the obsession for inmates because “you were so hungry, you thought about food and how to get more of it all the time.”

He continued.

“Sometimes you got lucky and you were able to catch a rat or two as a snack, which you’d skin, dry the meat out and eat, usually raw. If you tried to cook the rats, the guards would smell the meat or fire, catch you and beat you mercilessly…. If you thought about when you’d leave the camp each day, you were usually among the first to die. Psychologically, you cannot fully adapt to camp life if your thoughts are stuck only on your release.”

Kim was a homeless 16-year-old when arrested by authorities. He was sentenced to three years and is now 33.

More of his harrowing account can be found here.

As for the State Department’s Word Report on North Korean prison conditions, methods of torture utilized include “severe beatings, electric shock, prolonged periods of exposure to the elements, humiliations such as public nakedness, confinement for up to several weeks in small “punishment cells” in which prisoners were unable to stand upright or lie down, being forced to kneel or sit immobilized for long periods, being hung by the wrists or forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse, and forcing mothers recently repatriated from China to watch the infanticide of their newborn infants.”

Defectors have also told the U.S. State Department that torture, disease, starvation, exposure to the elements, or a combination of these causes, often claim the lives of prisoners before their release.

All that said, you might think public sentiment is on the side of Otto Warmbier, but that’s where you’d be wrong.

https://youtu.be/mjDgb-k4VXw

You don’t have to dig very far into the comments sections of major news sites to see an almost gleeful feeling at the sentence and what one commenter called “crocodile tears” of Otto Warmbier, who according to the commenter is “a total idiot,” who “deserves 14 and a half years JUST for being so stupid.”

Others agreed.

“If he wanted a souvenir, he should have just bought a t-shirt. He wasn’t at the beach for spring break. Some countries actually punish hooligans.”

“I have zero sympathy for him.”

“The guy is an idiot, and his parents apparently enabled him with money for school and travel.”

“And he should have been smarter and realized that stealing would get him an incredibly harsh sentence especially since he’s an American. I’m sorry but a 12-year-old could figure that out, he’s an idiot and he deserves to stay where he is. America shouldn’t be responsible for rescuing citizens who get themselves in trouble. You break it, you buy it.”

There are literally hundreds of these comments on the ABC News and Yahoo! News reports alone that are taking pleasure in what will likely happen to a 21-year-old kid for stealing a sign.

While Otto Warmbier does have President Obama and Ohio governor John Kasich calling for his release, the ball is totally in Kim Jong-un’s court at this point.

What do you think will happen, reader? Is Otto Warmbier going to be released before his sentence is up, or will he be forced to serve the full punishment? And do you think Pyongyang should show him leniency? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Image via YouTube video no. 2, linked above]