Inside North Korea’s brutal Olympic regime with spies & secret cops where brainwashed athletes face gulags if they fail

BRAINWASHED North Korean Olympians will be spying on each other in Paris to ensure no one steps out of line, a defector says.

It's believed competitors from the secretive state are held back by mutually-assured punishment if they step out of line - with a "monitoring" group noting their every move.

The Kim Jong-un led dictatorship has athletes back on the global stage for the first time since the Rio games in 2016.

They pulled out of Tokyo amid Covid fears, and for failing to send a team they were consequently banned from the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

North Korea's return to the Games in Paris has rekindled public interest in the lengths the regime goes to keep athletes isolated from the outside world.

Defector Jy Hyun Park, who now lives in the UK, told The Sun a culture of "mutual criticism" would ensure athletes don't dare to step outside their guarded bubble.

She said: "Those who participated in the Olympics will not only criticise each other, but also criticise themselves about what they did while in France.

"The monitoring group within the group writes down all their actions and sends that to the government."

Park added poor performances could lead to cruel punishment and the athletes may be "treated like political prisoners".

When the 16 North Korean athletes fly home, authorities will keep them silenced on anything they saw in Paris, Park explained - ensuring other citizens don't get any bold ideas.

Park said: "They will be imprisoned somewhere when they return and sign a contract saying that they will not reveal anything they saw, heard, ate, or did in France."

In Paris, they have been tucked away furthest from the entrance to the athletes' village in what appears an attempt to shield them, South Korean media have reported.

Pictures show North Korean flags hanging from a building deep in the accommodation zone.

They appear hung over windows on the fifth floor of a seven-story building beside flags of Libya, Ecuador and Cameroon.

North Korea has a small squad of 16 for the Games, with 12 women and four men competing.

Park said: "It is highly likely that North Korean athletes will be closely monitored by security personnel, including secret police handlers.

"Athletes are likely enduring harsh conditions under strict surveillance."

And they've been largely hidden from the public eye.

Organisers on July 23 held an open media day in the village and the North Koreans were nowhere to be seen.

South Korean reporters then ventured deep into the village to find them - but couldn't speak with any despite locating the building they are lodging in.

Maeil Business Newspaper, a South Korean publication, claims to have seen a female athlete entering the village's fitness centre with coaching staff.

But the report added: "They did not face South Korean officials and reporters in a hurry."

Park says this is consistent with North Korean policy to "isolate its athletes".

SURVEILLANCE

Spies are likely attending Olympic events and writing up surveillance reports to be sent back to Pyongyang, NK Leadership Watch founder Michael Madden said.

It means athletes police each other in private and are surveyed on by agents in public.

He explained: "Surveillance of DPRK athletes and coaches participating in the Olympics breaks down in two ways — direct physical surveillance and psychological conditioning and dynamics."

State Security Department (SSD) agents head abroad to secretly watch their targets when they're out in public, but in private the regime relies on psychological pressure.

Coaches and athletes are never alone, always in pairs or groups, Mr Madden said - whether at the gym to exercise or eating a meal in the cafeteria.

The North Koreans know that they must discourage any disobedience from their teammates because they'll find themselves in equally hot water if they don't.

Mr Madden explained: "They will attempt to discourage any prohibited interaction or behaviour.

"If they do not do so, then they could be in as much trouble as the offender.

"So there is peer pressure and the presence of other people to thwart, directly or indirectly, some type of transgression."

North Koreans are also forced to note down any interactions with foreigners and report back to authorities, Mr Madden added.

Who they interacted with, their country of origin and their reason for interacting are considered key points.

Not recalling every inch of detail might not prove a huge problem if it's a quick chat with a Brit.

But if it's a South Korean athlete, they're expected to "get as much person information from their South Korean counterpart as possible".

Mr Madden added: "If they go home and have a scant record of that meeting (with a South Korean), they certainly will be shovelling coal out of a mine or working on a construction project for a month or so."

Competing under its comical official name Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the country claimed a silver medal on Tuesday in a mixed doubles table tennis final.

Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong fell just short of gold against China.

They later posed for a selfie alongside the Chinese champs as well as South Korea's table tennis players - who won the bronze medal - in an extremely rare show of unity between the bitter foes.

It's unclear whether those players may be punished for showing a bit of love with the competitors from over the border.

The rivalry is such that even South Korean authorities find it distasteful to interact with North Koreans, Mr Madden said.

It came after South Korea was wrongly introduced as North Korea in the opening ceremony.

Announcers presented the South Korean athletes as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as they waved their flags in the rain down the river Seine.

The IOC was forced to apologise.

In a statement on X, it said: IOC said: "We deeply apologise for the mistake that occurred when introducing the South Korean team during the broadcast of the opening ceremony."

North Korea has competed in the Winter Games since 1964 and Summer Games since 1972, winning 56 medals, including 16 golds.

The most infamous case of athlete punishment came after the national football team reached the second round of the 1966 World Cup in England.

The team were said to have gone out drinking after losing to Portugal 5-3 - prompting a horror return home.

Then-leader Kim Il-sung is alleged to have condemned the players to one of North Korea's most notorious gulags.

Defector Kang Chol-Hwan claimed to have met them while in the savage Yodok Prison in a book titled The Aquariums of Pyongyang.

More recently, North Korea rebel Kim Hyeong-Soo, who fled the country in 2009, alleged athletes and coaches copped months of hard labour if they disappointed their leader.

Football global governing body FIFA a year later investigated claims the national team was again made to pay for its failures, this time after a 7-0 embarrassment against Portugal at the South Africa World Cup.

They were publicly shamed with the manager forced into construction work, it was reported.

His fate is unknown.

Tensions between South and North Korea

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have recently risen to their highest point in years - with Kim accelerating his weapons testing and South strengthening their joint war drills with the US.

• HOPES FOR UNITY

In January, Kim Jong-un has scrapped any effort for reunification with Seoul.

The dictator shut down several government bodies tasked with promoting reconciliation with South Korea.

He was quoted saying: "We don’t want war but we have no intention of avoiding it."

Kim also appeared to have blown up a major monument in North Korea's capital that symbolised hope for unity.

The move is thought to have been a deliberate choice by the dictator, signalling his refusal to unite with his country's "enemy".

• WEAPON TESTING

From the start of 2024, North Korea has tested multiple types of missile systems.

In January, the North's military fired a new intermediate-range, solid-fuel hypersonic missile - which Washington, Seoul and Tokyo condemned as a serious violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

A week later, North Korea tested its nuclear underwater attack drone which is reportedly capable of sparking a "radioactive tsunami".

The US and its Asian allies have responded by strengthening their combined military exercises - which Kim calls rehearsals for invasion.

The current South Korean government is led by president Yoon Suk Yeol, who shares hawkish view of North Korea compared to his predecessor.

He has increased efforts to collaborate with the US and Japan to combat the North's aggressive moves in a bid to deter the war.

In turn, Kim threatened to "annihilate" Seoul if provoked and vowed to enhance his country's ability to deliver a nuclear strike on the US and America's allies in the Pacific.

Experts say that Kim is trying to stoke up anger by conducting more missile tests and possibly launching small-scale physical attacks on its neighbour to meddle with South Korea' s elections in April.