The U.S. State Department is urging North Korea to immediately release an American student who was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday that the 15-year sentence is unduly harsh for the actions that Otto Frederic Warmbier allegedly took, and called on the North to immediately release him on humanitarian grounds.

Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was handed the tough sentence on March 16th last year by North Korea's supreme court for stealing a propaganda banner from a hotel in Pyongyang where he was staying as part of an organized tour.

Meanwhile, the State Department again discouraged U.S. citizens from visiting the communist country.
 

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