The State Department updated its North Korea travel warning May 16 to reflect “the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention” American citizens face “under North Korea’s system of law enforcement.”
The updated warning said North Korea “imposes unduly harsh sentences, including for actions that in the United States would not be considered crimes” and that “at least 14 U.S. citizens have been detained in the DPRK in the past 10 years.”
Third-year Commerce student Otto Warmbier is one of two American citizens — the other being an American-Korean man named Kim Dong-chul — currently serving a sentence in the DPRK.
Warmbier was detained Jan. 2 in the Pyongyang Sunan International Airport while on a trip with Young Pioneer Tours. At a press conference in February, Warmbier confessed to attempting to steal a banner from a staff-only area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang.
Warmbier claimed he committed the “hostile act” against the North Korean government with the support of an Ohio church, the Z Society and the Central Intelligence Agency.
The banner — which read “Let’s firmly arm ourselves with Kim Jong-il patriotism!” — is considered sacrosanct in North Korean culture.
On March 16, the North Korean Supreme Court sentenced Warmbier to 15 years of hard labor on charges of subversion.
Dong-chul is accused of espionage against the North Korean government and was sentenced by the North Korean Supreme Court to 10 years of hard labor April 29. Dong-chul has been detained since Oct. 2015.
Dong-chul told CNN in an interview in January he is a Korean-born U.S. citizen. Dong-chul said he is 62 and formerly lived in the city of Fairfax.
The updated travel advisory also noted that organized tour groups do not provide protection for Americans traveling in the DPRK.
“North Korea has detained those who traveled independently and those who were part of organized tours,” the advisory reads. “Being a member of a group tour or using a tour guide will not prevent North Korean authorities from detaining or arresting you. Efforts by private tour operators to prevent or resolve past detentions of U.S. citizens in the DPRK have not been successful.”
The travel advisory was also updated with a list of actions, “whether done knowingly or unknowingly” by Americans, that have been treated as crimes by the DPRK.
Among the list of actions is “showing disrespect to the country’s former leaders, Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il, or for the country’s current leader, Kim Jong Un, including but not limited to tampering with or mishandling materials bearing their names or images” and “removing or tampering with political slogans and signs or pictures of political leaders.”
The updated travel advisory replaces one dated Nov. 20, 2015.
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