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Comment by Scoundreller | Hacker News Reader

> North Korea can take you with whatever justification they feel like and return you as a vegetable.

That’s most/all countries (or their embassies) you visit, no?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khash...

A big political enemy of the saudi family that been a pain in their ass (rightly so since they are an evil dictatorship) vs random student that just took a poster as a souvernir.

Not the same thing. Anyone can be killed in North Korea. 99,99999999999% of people are not on the saudi familys enemy list.

> random student that just took a poster as a souvernir.

Let's not mince words here, he stole government property in a country with some of the harshest laws on earth.

Did he deserve to die for it? No, but it was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

One might even argue that the stupidity began when he decided to visit NK.

His fellow travelers say this was impossible, the “recording” was fake, and the timestamps are at a time when he wasn’t even in the hotel. Why would you assume n. Korea is being honest here?

I would not say that I would assume that North Korea is being honest but what makes you think that his fellow travelers are being honest either?

His fellow travelers were from many different countries

yeah for sure, because otherwise NK has fantastic relations with USA!

Nice victim blaming.

It's no more victim blaming than being honest about what happens to people who visit Singapore with pot.

I don't think it really makes sense to talk about "laws" for places like North Korea, as it's not a rule of law state.

Perhaps, but Saudi Arabia is pretty close to North Korea as far as my desire to ever visit the place. Both of them are extremely unappealing.

> assassination by western trade partner VS assassination by isolated country

Not the same thing!!!

Is an airplane the same thing as a car? After all, they both have wheels.

I feel a lot better about my chances in pretty much any other country than NK.

I’m sure some countries are more willing to treat guests to the vegetable treatment than others.

Other countries have a larger denominator to reduce the proportion of visits vs arbitrary detention and torture.

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