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The State Department said Friday it would ban U.S. citizens from traveling to North Korea due to what a spokeswoman described as “mounting concerns over the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention,” the Los Angeles Times reported. The decision follows the death of Otto Warmbier, a former University of Virginia student who was arrested in North Korea in January 2016 and sentenced to hard labor. He was returned to the U.S. in a coma last month and died several days later.
Notice of the travel prohibition is expected to be published in the Federal Register this week and will go into effect 30 days later. Case-by-case exceptions could be made for certain humanitarian travel, according to the State Department spokeswoman.
The New York Times reported that three Korean-Americans are known to remain in prison in North Korea, including two who worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
ScienceInsider published an interview Friday with the chancellor of PUST, which has an American president and about 40 American faculty. Chancellor Chan-Mo Park, a South Korea-born U.S. citizen, spoke to ScienceInsider about the impact of the expected travel prohibition on the university and the detention of the two PUST employees, among other topics. He said that the travel ban would be "very bad news" for the university, which would have to find faculty from other countries. Asked about what efforts the university has undertaken on behalf of the detained employees, Park, who is a Christian, answered, "Since their arrests were not related to their work with PUST, professors and staff members could not do anything -- except pray hard."
