cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/40456691

It was a heartwarming moment that captured the Olympic spirit, but North Korea’s table tennis champions may be punished for joining a selfie with their opponents from the South.

Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong, who won silver medals, are said to be undergoing “ideological evaluation” along with other athletes who returned from the Paris Games.

The assessment is a standard procedure to “cleanse” the team from “exposure to contamination” abroad, the Daily NK reported.

North Korean athletes were reportedly given “special instructions” not to interact with South Koreans or other foreign athletes in Paris, under threat of repercussions.

Since returning from France, the Olympic team is believed to be in the process of a three-stage ideological assessment process by the country’s ministry of sport.

It is said to last about a month, with the intention of purging any lingering influence of “non-socialist” culture.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 months ago

      I’m gonna guess that there’s a lot of potential legal and security hurdles to linking to anything hosted in North Korea. Or maybe NK Daily os only available in Korean and as such linking to the article would be useless as far as moth of the Telegraph’s readership goes 🤷

      Not defending that conservative rag in general, mind you, just pointing out the specific difficulties…