As one of the official partners at this year’s Olympic games in Paris, all athletes were provided units of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip6. All athletes from every country were lucky to receive the phone, except for one country: North Korea.
The reason behind the country’s exclusion from Samsung’s generosity boils down to the Security Council Resolution 2397, which was passed back in 2017. The resolution effectively prohibits the supply, sale, or transfer to North Korea of all “industrial machinery”. Based on that rule, advanced mobile devices like the Galaxy Z Flip6 falls under the that categorisation. This pointed was highlighted by South Korean officials, who said that it would be “critical to prevent the prohibited items from going into North Korea.”
The International Olympic Committee has confirmed that the phones were sent to the Olympic Village but said that the North Korean athletes had not received them. As to where their units went, the committee did not say.
