A largely unnoticed and radical group with connections to a nonprofit helmed by tech millionaire Neville Roy Singham has been actively promoting pro-North Korea sentiments. Operating discreetly from its base in Midtown, this nonprofit aims to undermine US-South Korea relations while criticizing American policies, The Post has discovered.
Known as Nodutdol, which translates to “stepping stone” in Korean, the organization purports to foster “US-Korean understanding and education,” according to their nonprofit tax statements. However, the group’s actual agenda appears to be more about rallying American leftists against what they term “US imperialism.”
“As imperialist warmongers and far-right forces threaten Korea’s future, we come together to galvanize the movement for Korea’s liberation,” the organization proclaimed in an invitation for its “People’s Summit for Korea,” an event held in New York City this past July.
During the three-day summit, hosted at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, approximately 500 attendees were reported to have chanted “tujaeng,” a phrase critics argue is synonymous with North Korea’s communist revolutionary anthem.
Further demonstrating its controversial stance, the group organized a “US out of Korea conference” in Colorado, scheduled for 2024. At this event, a member and keynote speaker reportedly praised North Korea’s election system, highlighting the group’s alignment with the isolated regime’s ideologies.
In Colorado during its 2024 “US out of Korea conference,” a member and conference speaker boasted about the dictatorship’s election system.
“US media defines democracy completely differently,” University of Colorado Sociology Professor and Nodutdol member Haruki Eda told the crowd.
Eda, a Korean who grew up in Japan, came to the US “to study LGBTQ+ movements,” according to his personal website.
“In the tradition of communist and socialist election system, we discuss the candidates so thoroughly before we even cast the vote, that’s often why the election result is 100 percent,” he claimed, bizarrely painting this as a “community-based grassroots way of …deciding on our leaders.”
Nodutdol was formed in 1999 by controversial Queens politician John Choe, who stepped down from his post at the city Comptroller’s Office in 2012 during the Bloomberg administration, after The Post reported on his North Korean leanings. Choe has denied this was the reason. He later got Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ backing during his failed 2021 city council bid.
The group only declared $55,000 in revenue in its last US tax filing, and doesn’t disclose how many member it has — but notably features university professors, film directors and even a US Congresswoman among its directors.
One of Nodutdol’s central demands is putting an end to the US-South Korea alliance. It also pushes for the reunification of North and South Korea.
It’s one of the smallest groups linked to the twisted web of far-left organizations tied to Singham, a US expat living in China. The so-called Singham network includes his nonprofit the People’s Forum and his wife’s Code Pink, which have been linked to Chinese influence operations in a State Department report to Congress.Â
Nodutdol runs its events out of the sprawling Midtown digs of the People’s Forum on West 37th Street, where it regularly hosts seemingly innocuous events like its “Kimchi Bowl” year-end fundraiser and upcoming YEar of the Horse celebration, which promises to teach about Korea’s revolutionary martyrs.
Lately, much like Singham’s groups, it’s hopped on the anti-ICE bandwagon as it aims to gain traction in the land of the free.
“As anti-imperialists, we know that the violence ICE is wreaking in the US is connected to the same violence Koreans have faced through US intervention and warmaking,” Nodutol posted last week in a promotion for its upcoming new year bash.
“This Lunar New Year, we say: US Out of Everywhere, ICE Out of our Communities!”
“Sometimes it’s as simple as a K-pop dance party that’s like a gateway — other times, it’s very explicit, where it’s like, you’re doing North Korean chants in a church in New York as you hear about the evils of America and how great the North Korean state library is,” said Stu Smith, an analyst for the Manhattan Institute who has studied the group.
“This is still a country who’s very actively trying to undermine and hurt America,” he added. “Just because you’re a nonprofit, it doesn’t mean you get to have free reign to do whatever you want.”
Nodutdol did not return The Post’s request for comment.
