In recent years, as its regime has been increasingly hemmed in by sanctions, North Korea has encouraged foreign tourists to visit the country. Unfortunately, it’s been working—nearly 10,000 Westerners now travel to the North Korea each year. One of them, 85-year-old Merrill Newman of Palo Alto, California, has been detained there for the last several weeks.
The problem is, visiting North Korea is an inherently morally suspect act. The regime uses the hard currency gained from foreign tourists to keep its gulag running and nuclear program humming. Sad to say, but those jolly, well-fed tourists taking junkets to Pyongyang (and writing breathless travelogues on their return) are morally complicit in the human rights horror show that is North Korea. Moreover, as the Mr. Newman situation shows, foreigners are also willfully putting themselves in grave danger merely by entering the totalitarian country.
