FIRST ON FOX — Otto Warmbier would have been a 29-year-old New Yorker by now, living in Manhattan and working as a financial analyst, perhaps a resident of the Turtle Bay apartment building where he was last photographed waiting for a friend.
But instead, the then University of Virginia college student was arrested because he was an American, falsely accused of stealing a political poster, put on a show-trial in the unforgiving dictatorship of Kim Jong Un and ultimately tortured to be sent home to die in 2017 at the age of 22. In death, Otto has become an enduring symbol of human rights and now there is another push to honor him and remind the North Koreans, and the international community, of the brutality of the Kim regime.
“As a mother whose son is imprisoned in a political prison camp by the Kim Jong Un regime, and even do not know his whereabouts, I share a deep pain over the death of Otto Warmbier,” says Soyeon Lee, a human rights activist and North Korean defector with the New Korean Women’s Union, a group composed of hundreds of North Korean defectors fighting for freedom or the North Korean people.
Lee is the latest supporter of “Otto Warmbier Way,” the proposal to name the corner of Second Avenue and 43rd Street in Manhattan in front of the office building that houses the North Korean Mission to the United Nations. The street sign with such a designation, in front of 820 Second Avenue, would be seen as a defiant, moral message to Kim’s diplomats and a compelling reminder of the regime’s harsh realities to the U.N. community and the world.
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“If ‘Otto Warmbier Way’ is established in New York City, where the North Korean Mission to the UN is based, it would demonstrate that New York City is a proactive city protecting human rights and advocating for international justice,” says Lee.
On Wednesday she will speak by Zoom before the Transportation Committee of the local Community Board Six supporting the honorary re-naming, a step toward the New York City Council eventually considering the plan.
The petition is seeking the signatures of locals to support the effort.
“Otto Warmbier Way” has garnered an impressive list of supporters through the years, including two New York City Mayors, two Manhattan Borough Presidents, several Congressional, New York State Assembly and City Council Members, multiple former U.S. Secretaries of State and U.S. Ambassadors to the United Nations, as well as U.S. Senators and human rights activists.
The Warmbier family is honored by the proposal.
“We support her efforts and love how the North Korean defectors support us,” Cindy Warmbier, Otto’s mother, told Fox News.
But the plan has not yet moved in the Council, because it needs to be introduced by the Council Member who represents the district, Keith Powers, who has indicated support for the plan in the past. Powers is now term-limited and has announced that he is running for the office of Manhattan Borough President.
Lee says the Community Board can act and send a meaningful message about human rights across the globe.
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“This will be an opportunity to raise awareness about human rights issues among New York City residents, visitors to New York, and people around the world. New York City always has various human rights related streets, and this would help to internationally promote and continually focus attention on North Korean human rights issues. Many international human rights movements have started with symbolic actions that lead to tangible change, and I believe that “Otto Warmbier Way” could play such a role,”she says.
Most street renamings require evidence of a local community connection, but the city’s general guidelines state that “exceptions may be made however for individuals who die under infamous circumstances of crime, accident, disease, social circumstance, military service or the like, or if the death leads itself to a greater awareness with society of the cause of death and concerted effort to address that problem.”
The policy of Community Board Six, which Lee will be addressing, includes naming streets for a candidate who “made a permanent, continuing and significant positive contribution to the great good of the community” or “has made an extraordinary contribution in the service of humanity.”
Supporters say Otto is such an individual, whose killing prompted world-wide condemnation and outrage, making him a poignant and potent symbol of the struggle for human rights.
Mayor Eric Adams will sign Otto’s street naming into law, Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy has told Fox News, if the Council passes it.
“Mayor Adams wholeheartedly condemns the human rights abuses committed by North Korea and has nothing but sympathy for the loss the Warmbier family suffered when Otto was taken from them,” Levy told Fox News.
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Former Mayor Bill de Blasio also supported “Otto Warmbier Way.”
“We are a symbol of human rights for the whole world, and we have confronted in this city dictators and tyrants, historically. This is a place that has really led the international effort against oppression and there is no government more oppressive than the North Korean government, and the fact that an American lost his life there is something we need to honor and remember,” said de Blasio.
“In this city we stand up for human rights and dignity… there is literally not a worse regime on earth than North Korea, so I am very comfortable that we need this to end up against them as well.”
Other supporters have included a bipartisan list of officials, including: former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Mike Pompeo, former U.N. Ambassadors Bill Richardson and John Bolton, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Chris Van Hollen, members of the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Human Rights, current and former Manhattan Borough Presidents Mark Levine and Gale Brewer, a current Council member, as well as her colleague Council Member Joe Borelli, New York State Assmebly Member Harvey Epstein, among others.
In recent years, the New York City Council has renamed streets for figures as diverse as entertainers, sports stars, historical figures and various political causes.
Fan Noli, the cleric and writer who served as the Prime Minister of Albania in 1924, is honored with a street in the Bronx where “Ibrahim al-Hamdi Way” is named for the former president of Yemen who was assassinated in 1977. “Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard” in Brooklyn was named after the Haitian revolutionary who led his nation against France in 1804 that led to the massacre of up to 10,000 French residents.
Recent honorary re-namings also include a Nepalese Mountain Sherpa, U.S. Navy victims of Pearl Harbor and 177 people and groups added by the City Council this year.
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The 2024 list includes “Tony Bennett Place,” for the legendary Astoria, Queens born singer; “Giovanni da Verrazano Way” for the 15th century explorer who was the first European to land in New York; “The Graffiti Hall of Fame Way,” for an historic Manhattan playground wall adored with graffitti; “Mothers on the Move/MOM Way,” for a Bronx activist group focused on human rights and “St. Pat’s For All Way” to honor a local Queens parade established to include the LGBTQIA community and as a symbol of human rights.
Council Member Brewer told Fox News “Manhattanites — and all New Yorkers — have always cared about the larger world because so many of us came from elsewhere. So it’s personal for us to always seek justice on the global stage –and co-naming Second Avenue from 43rd to 44th streets is one small way we can keep Otto’s memory alive.”
“New York City should still use this opportunity to rename the street and thumb our nose at the North Korean dictatorship. Otto’s life could matter even more as a strong sign against totalitarianism,” City Council Member Joe Borelli also said.
“By designating “Otto Warmbier Way” in the heart of New York City, we would send a strong message to North Korea and other repressive countries that the international community continues to pay attention to what they have done and are doing,” says Lee.
“We need to remind people of Otto and tell the stories of victims like him.”