Petition seeks Dennis Rodman’s HoF removal over North Korea actions

A petition on change.org is seeking the removal of Dennis Rodman from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame because of his praise and defense of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

The petition, started by a group called the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, comes the same week U.S. college student Otto Warmbier died shortly after he was released in a coma following a year's captivity in North Korea.

“[Getting Rodman removed from the Hall] would of course be symbolically important right now," the foundation's executive director, Marion Smith, told USA Today. "It was truly interesting that Dennis Rodman happened to be in North Korea at the same time Otto Warmbier was released. That’s what these kinds of regimes do. They use pop culture figures to distract people when they have something negative in the press.”

According to USA Today, officials in Washington and Pyongyang say Rodman's visit — his fifth to the reclusive nation — had nothing to do with Warmbier going home.

Rodman consistently has defended Kim, who Rodman has called his "friend for life."

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