What is going on in North Korea?

Kim Jong-un has turned up again, after being MIA with an illness, and in his absence the state-run Korean Central News Agency was pumping out images to assure the public that the great leader remains in control. The only problem is that the images they release increasingly make no sense—even undermine his authority. It isn’t just that the image are badly Photoshopped; they are possibly subversive.

Take this story published online in Britain’s Independent newspaper a few days ago. As a devotee of North Korean propaganda photography (see: “Does Anyone Else Find this Photograph of Kim Jong-un Scary?”), I couldn’t resist sharing it. Can you spot what is wrong with this recently released set of photographs of Kim Jong-un?

Below is the story from our friends at the Independent:

This photo was released as part of a set by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency. But there’s something wrong with it.
Maybe it’s another botched PhotoShop job of which North Korea is notorious. After all, Kim Jong-un has rarely been in the public eye recently.

Nope.

Maybe it’s because of the incongruity of the head of a brutal regime visiting a garishly decorated orphanage while apparatchiks studiously take notes.

Nope.

Oh, maybe it’s because said leader is in fact surely breaching the no-smoking policy at the Pyongyang Baby Home and Orphanage.

Nope.

It’s actually because of the act of supreme political dissidence being carried out directly behind Kim’s back.

Fight the power!