Former NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman leaves the Koryo hotel for Sunan International Airport on Saturday, June 17, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
The death of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, who was held in North Korean captivity for 17 months, has led to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to start a petition to remove Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member Dennis Rodman.
Warmbier was released from North Korea and in just a few days of his returning to the United States, he was pronounced dead after being in a coma for a year during his imprisonment. The student was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after he was accused of stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel in the communist country.
Rodman and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un have a very close relationship. Rodman considers Jong-Un to be a “friend for life” and has visited the country numerous of times.
The organization claims that Rodman has “blood on his hands” for his praise of the dictator and should therefore be kicked out of the Hall of Fame as they claim he has “damaged the integrity of basketball.”
The petition on Change.org has already garnered 900 signatures and needs only 100 more to reach the goal of 1,000.
