Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America faction supported a radical pro-North Korea rally where the crowd chanted “death to imperialism,” from the US, The Post has learned.
The New York chapter of the ultra-progressive group, of which Mamdani is the most prominent member, endorsed the People’s Summit for Korea in the city, which bizarrely calls for the reunification of the country — with despot Kim Jong Un in charge!
The DSA’s International Committee was among several Marxist “supporting organizations,” that backed the anti-American event, calling for Korea to be reunited as a socialist paradise under the iron grip of its Communist northern powers.
Over 500 people attended the propaganda summit, which continually glorified the rogue nuclear North Korean state — one of the US’ main adversaries on the world stage — and featured participants calling for “death to imperialism,” and for the end of US military and “economic domination of Korea.”
Although he did not attend, sources said state Assemblyman and city mayoral candidate Mamdani’s proximity to the event, held at Riverside Church in Harlem between July 25-27, was ill-advised.
“What does it tell New York’s Chinese and Korean immigrants who fled to the city to get away from oppressive regimes?” Veteran political strategist Hank Sheinkopf told The Post Tuesday.
“What does it say to [others] who fled here because of repressive regimes? It tells them that if you support Mamdani the people who are with him are going to do terrible things to us.”
The decidedly anti-American speeches included keynote speaker Brian Becker.
“One of the problems that we face in the United States is the nonstop demonization and caricaturing of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea],” he said.
“What happens here in the belly of the beast, in the center of imperialism, would make all the difference in the world…for those yearning to take the socialist path,” he continued.
Becker serves as National Director of the ANSWER Coalition, an anti-war group linked to Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine, groups with ties to Hamas and Iran.
Becker is also one of the organizers of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which was also listed as one of the supporters of the People’s Summit for Korea.
That radical group made national headlines after Elias Rodriguez, who allegedly shot and killed two Israeli embassy workers at the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington in May, was identified as once having been linked to the group.
Other speakers linked the Palestinian struggle with the North Korean battle against “US imperialism,” according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Speaker “Tamar G.” of the Palestinian Youth Movement said Palestinians increasingly see the movement in North Korea as similar to their own as both are engaged in battles to “dismantle a US imperialist outpost,” she said. “So let’s do it together.”
The North Korean government exercises tight control over all areas of life for its citizens. Entire families can be sent to prison camps and tortured for minor infractions and accessing foreign media is punishable by death. Food shortages are common and 40% of the population were undernourished in 2024, according to Amnesty International.
Betsy Yoon, an assistant professor at City University of New York’s Baruch College, who has led three delegations to North Korea since 2011, also spoke. She is on the board of Nodutdol, a nonprofit calling for Korean reunification and the removal of US troops from the Korean peninsula.
“The People’s Summit promoted revolutionary rhetoric and narratives closely aligned with North Korean state propaganda, including calling for the Korean reunification under a communist regime,” said a report from the Network Contagion Research Institute, a think tank that tracks extremism and created an intelligence report on the conference.
The conference also included a small-scale demonstration near Times Square on July 27 calling for the end of US military and “economic domination of Korea.”
There were also “networking” workshops for building pro-North Korean student movements on US campuses, according to social media.
“The summit, vocal in its radical content and ideological proximity to foreign adversaries, was nonetheless formally endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America,” the NCRI report noted.
The summit was also backed by nonprofits linked to socialist die-hard Neville Singham, a now-Shanghai-based American billionaire. For example, the Singham-funded People’s Forum organized many of the anti-Israel protests in New York City following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel that left 1,200 dead and resulted 251 hostages, some of whom remain in Hamas captivity
In addition to Mamdani, the DSA also backed the campaign of progressive Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
