Findings published by the Network Contagion Research Institute: 

• The Singham Network is a global web of nonprofits, financial sponsors, and alternative news sources connected to Neville Roy Singham. In April 2023, the New York Times wrote that the socialist Singham “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide. Singham worked as a consultant for Huawei, lives in Shanghai, and shared office premises with a Chinese propaganda firm. He has also reportedly been spotted at CCP workshops and investigated by the U.S., Canada, and India for CCP operations.
• Members of the Singham Network operate under the umbrella of Shut It Down for Palestine. Shut It Down for Palestine movement’s activities and foreign relationships since its formation in October 2023. It describes the group as an anti-capitalist, anti-police, and anti-government protest movement. Shut It Down for Palestine is a network that organizes frequent demonstrations and uses direct action campaigns to target critical infrastructure and public spaces. 
• Singham says he is guided only by his beliefs and long-held personal views. Singham Network exploits regulatory loopholes in the U.S. nonprofit system to move giant sums of money to organizations and movements that actively stoke social unrest at the grassroots level.
• Shut it Down for Palestine has ties to extremist groups that embrace a violent single-state resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Recent protests seem focused on Israel, but they are part of a well-funded initiative driving a revolutionary anti-government and anti-capitalist agenda.

The Singham network amplified anti-Israel activism not just through the NGOs’ social media accounts but through pro-CCP media outlets like BreakThrough News.

Key radical left-wing organizations in the post-October 7 anti-Israel protest movement are funded by or connected to a Chinese Communist Party-linked network, according to a Monday Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) report.

According to NCRI, three convenors of the Shut it Down For Palestine coalition, Answer Coalition, The People’s Forum, and the International Peoples’ Assembly are linked by a complicated web of financial, personal, personnel, and ideological ties to CCP associates Neville Roy Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans.

NCRI explained that Singham served as a consultant for Huawei, lives in Shanghai, and shares premises with Chinese propaganda firm Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications. He has been spotted at CCP workshops and investigated by the US, Canada, and India for CCP operations. An August New York Times investigation described Singham as a known “socialist benefactor of far-left causes.” It tracked the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars to Singham-linked groups engaging in pro-China progressive advocacy.

Socialist activist Evans is, according to NCRI, a board member of the People’s Forum and is listed as a co-founder of CODEPINK, which is an official endorser of Shut it Down For Palestine and has been prominent in the post-October 7 protests and regularly challenges US congresspeople at the capitol.

Evans has co-written a book called “China is Not Our Enemy,” which was co-authored by a researcher from a foundation tied to the CCP, Dongsheng News and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Singham’s son, Nate Singham, works as a researcher at Tricontinental, and the elder Singham is the chairman of the organization’s international advisory board.

In November, the Free Press claimed that the Forum received 20 million dollars from Singham in 2017 and 2022, funneled through the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund. According to NCRI, “GSPF appears to function as a dark money clearinghouse, obscuring the identity of donors while facilitating the transfer of substantial sums to American non-profits.”

The Forum, according to NCRI, received a $64,500 grant from The Justice and Education Fund, which had been provided with $20 million through GSPF in 2019 and 2020. JEF’s board members include People’s Forum founder and Tricontinental researcher Manolo De Los Santos and People’s Forum general manager David Chung. NCRI said that JEF also appears to facilitate funds transfer to other Singham-linked entities abroad, paying Maku $2.3 million and India-based outlet Newsclick $2.9 Million for contractors. The BBC reported in October that the Indian government raided Newsclick officials for illegal funds from China and served as a CCP propaganda mouthpiece in connection to Singham.

The United Community Fund, which reportedly received an $8.33 million grant from the JEF, allocated $3 million to the People’s Forum and $700,000 to Tricontinental. According to NCRI, Tricontinental Institute art director, researcher, and IPA contributor Tings Chak was listed as United Community Fund director in 2022. Alleged UCF treasurer Renata Porto Bugni also works at Tricontinental.

The Answer Coalition, which, like the People’s Forum, has been involved in significant protests across the country, including supporting campus encampments, received funding from and shares an address with the Progress Unity Fund (PUF). NCRI said PUF gave ANSWER $244,000 over the past five years. PUF is a fiscal sponsor of Pivot to Peace, of which member Henry Liang was arrested for FARA violations as an agent of the Chinese government. Answer Coalition National Director Brian Becker, Code Pink’s Benjamin, and People’s Forum are listed by PUF as signatories of its mission statement, which seeks to diminish American antagonism toward China. The Answer Coalition and PUF site often serve as a venue for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which has also been a notable actor in the anti-Israel protests. Becker is also a leader in PSL, as is Answer co-founder Claudia De la Cruz, the PSL’s 2024 presidential candidate.

The International People’s Assembly, which serves as an international umbrella organization, includes Tricontinental as a partner, and Tricontinental researcher Mikaela Nhondo Erskog is also a regional coordinator for IPA. The IPA coordinating committee includes CodePink and PSL. Working with the Shut it Down For Palestine coalition, ANSWER, People’s Forum, and IPA have organized large protests in the US, amassing 20,000 people for a May 1 protest in NYC and repeatedly directly calling for activists to join the encampment protests with highly produced graphics.

“All out to Columbia now!” People’s forum said on Instagram on April 24 with a graphic emblazoned with the Shut It Down logo. “The student organizers of Columbia University are calling on all New Yorkers of conscience to immediately go to Columbia to stand with them after the University’s Administration threatened to call in the National Guard if an agreement isn’t reached before midnight.”

Answer and People’s Forum are working with significant post-October 7 Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), Al-Awda, US Palestinian Community Network, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights to host a May 24 People’s Conference for Palestine. NSJP, Al-Awda, and PYM are co-conveners in the Shut It Down coalition. Endorsers of Shut It Down include American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Codepink.

Neville Roy Singham

The Singham Network is a global web of nonprofits, financial sponsors, and alternative news sources connected to Neville Roy Singham. In April 2023, the New York Times wrote that the socialist Singham “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide. Singham worked as a consultant for Huawei, lives in Shanghai, and shared office premises with a Chinese propaganda firm. He has also reportedly been spotted at CCP workshops and investigated by the U.S., Canada, and India for CCP operations.

Members of the Singham Network operate under the umbrella of Shut It Down for Palestine. Shut It Down for Palestine movement’s activities and foreign relationships since its formation in October 2023. It describes the group as an anti-capitalist, anti-police, and anti-government protest movement. Shut It Down for Palestine is a network that organizes frequent demonstrations and uses direct action campaigns to target critical infrastructure and public spaces. 

Neville Roy Singham (1954) is an American businessman and social activist. He is the founder and former chairman of Thoughtworks, an IT consulting company that provides custom software, software tools, and consulting services, which he sold to a private equity firm for $785 million in 2017. He consulted for Huawei and currently resides in Shanghai. 

He currently lives in Shanghai. A socialist and supporter of Maoism, Singham has helped fund causes and groups that promote pro-Chinese government messages. His son Nathan (Nate) Singham works for the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

Singham’s father, Archibald Singham, was Sri Lankan, while his mother was Cuban. In his youth, Singham was a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, a Black nationalist–-Maoist group, taking a job at a Chrysler plant in Detroit in 1972 as an activist in the group. He attended Howard University before starting a consulting firm for equipment-leasing companies from his Chicago home.

Singham founded ThoughtWorks, a Chicago-based IT consulting company that provides custom software, software tools, and consulting services, in the late 1980s. It was incorporated in 1993. From 2001 to 2008, Singham was a strategic technical consultant for Huawei. 

By 2008, ThoughtWorks employed 1,000 people, growing at 20–30% p.a., with bases worldwide. Its clients included Microsoft, Oracle, significant banks, and The Guardian newspaper. Singham owned 97% of the company’s common stock. By 2010, its clients included Daimler AG, Siemens, and Barclays, and it had opened a second headquarters in Bangalore.

Singham sold the company to private equity firm Apax Partners in 2017 for $785 million. By then, it had 4,500 employees in 15 countries, including South Africa and Uganda.

Singham has business interests in Chinese companies in the food and consultancy markets. As of 2023, his office is in Shanghai and is shared with the Maku Group, “whose goal is to educate foreigners about ‘the miracles that China has created on the world stage’” and to which it has given nearly $1.8 million in funding.

Singham opposes proprietary software development and supports open access and the Creative Commons movement. In 2008, Singham said, “As a socialist, I believe the world should have access to the best ideas in software for free. My goal is a technically superior infrastructure to solve the world’s problems.”[8][16] In the same interview, he described himself as a big fan of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, describing the country under his rule as a “phenomenally democratic place.” He also described his admiration for China, where Thoughtworks had a growing operation, describing it as a model for governance: “China is teaching the West that the world is better off with a dual system of both free-market adjustments and long-term planning.”

From 2001 to 2008, Singham was a consultant to Huawei.

Singham admires Maoism. Tricontinental Institute’s executive director, Vijay Prashad, described Singham as “A Marxist with a massive software company!”

In a November 2022 report, Intelligence Online wrote that Singham was trying to establish a U.S.-based movement for peace in Ukraine and opposing NATO enlargement.

In July 2023, Singham “joined a Communist Party workshop” about the international promotion of the Chinese Communist Party.

Singham is the principal financier of The People’s Forum, a US nonprofit group associated with organizing the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.

In August 2023, The New York Times reported that Singham works closely with the Chinese government and state media and donates to various groups, news organizations, and entities through non-profit groups and shell companies that spread pro-Chinese government messages. The non-profits distributing the funding, including the United Community Fund, Justice and Education Fund, and People’s Support Foundation, have addresses at UPS store mailboxes in Illinois, Wisconsin, and New York and are headed by Jodie Evans or former ThoughtWorks employees. Funded groups include an Indian-based independent news site, NewsClick, that the Times described as having “sprinkled its coverage with Chinese government talking points”; in South Africa, the Nkrumah School, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party and the New Frame news startup whose editor had resigned in 2022 citing its “soft coverage” of China and Russia); the Brasil de Fato newspaper in Brazil; and activist groups No Cold War, Code Pink, People’s Forum, and Tricontinental in the United States. In response to the Times report, Singham said he was not a “member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government or their representatives.”

Following the August 2023 New York Times report, US Senator Marco Rubio asked the United States Department of Justice to open an investigation into entities related to Singham for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).