DPRK Condemned for Abuse we see in Amerikan Prisons Daily

On June 13, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) released an Amerikan student, Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned there for 15 months. The student came home in a coma and died a few days later. According to Korean officials, Warmbier had been in a coma since shortly after his arrest due to complications from botulism, a condition that can be contracted from contaminated food, soil or water. It's likely that the imprisonment of Warmbier was just a political move by the DPRK government. He was convicted of stealing a propaganda poster.

What is unusual about Warmbier is that he was a young, well-off white guy, enjoying the privilege of his Amerikan citizenship and wealth by going on a fun adventure to visit north Korea. Amerika mostly targets lumpen from oppressed nations and non-citizens for imprisonment, as well as people who take up the fight against imperialism. So in this country Warmbier would be very unlikely to end up in prison.

After Warmbier's death there was an outcry of criticism of the DPRK government, with Trump attacking the "brutality of the North Korean regime." These criticisms come from the same people who are silent on conditions in Amerikan prisons that lead to deaths regularly. Prisoners regularly get sick from conditions that include insufficient or even contaminated food(1), mold(2), toxins and other environmental risks in old and unclean prisons(3), contaminated water(4), unsafe levels of heat(5), and inadequate, incompetent and willfully neglegent medical care.(6) And that is just the list of "negligence" abuse. Meanwhile, over 100,000 prisoners are tortured daily in U.$. prisons(7) and some politically active and critical prisoners have ended up dead.(8)

In a parallel to this case in Korea, Amerikan prisons hold many non-citizens(9), especially from Mexico and Central America, locked up for small or bogus charges. If not for conditions caused by imperialism, these people want to go home to their country and families. Some don't speak English and so can't even fight for their rights. Some were railroaded into pleading guilty without really understanding the trial. And some of these prisoners will end up seriously ill or even die due to conditions in Amerikan prisons.(10)

We don't hold out hope that the white nationalists will offer a criticism of the "brutality of the Amerikan regime" for all these crimes against prisoners held behind bars in this country. It should be an embarrassment to Amerikans that the United $tates locks up people at a rate higher than any other country in the world. But this system of social control is swept under the rug, while appologists for imperialism hypocritically criticize the DPRK (and other countries) for their treatment of one Amerikan prisoner.

MIM(Prisons) struggles for an end to a system where prisons are places where people suffer and die premature deaths.