north korea detained a 21 year-old uva college student by the name of otto warmbier in 2016 for attempting to smuggle a propaganda poster back to the united states. he was sentenced to 15 years hard labor during an hour long trial in march 2016.
on our brigade to darien, panama, we teamed up with uva. i remember sitting in the hut listening to darius talk to a few of the students about what was going on with otto. to my surprise, some of the students actually knew him or had seen him around campus. today, one of the girls on the brigade shared an article pertaining to otto warmbier and his status on facebook. apparently, he’s in a coma, and north korea is deciding to release him after 17 months on humanitarian grounds. 17 months.
some mistakes are costly, but we all make them.
i hope we all realize this.
ratha, 3:08pm, 6.13.17