WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump hailed assassinated ally Charlie Kirk as a “martyr for truth and freedom” as he posthumously awarded the right-wing activist America’s highest civilian honour.

Handing the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk’s tearful widow, Trump compared the 31-year-old conservative to Socrates, Saint Peter, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.

Trump, 79, also used the somber ceremony at the White House to vow to redouble his crackdown on what he calls radical left-wing groups that he launched following Kirk’s shooting.

“In the wake of Charlie’s assassination, our country must have absolutely no tolerance for this radical left violence, extremism and terror,” Trump told an audience of the country’s conservative elite. “We’re done with the angry mobs, and we’re not going to let our cities be unsafe.”

The US State Department on Tuesday said it had revoked visas of at least six foreign nationals who had “celebrated the heinous assassination” on social media.

In posts to X, the department shared offending posts allegedly by citizens of Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Paraguay who had called Kirk “racist,” “xenophobic” or other characterisations.

One German apparently lost their US visa for writing “When fascists die, democrats don’t complain,” according to the State Department.

The Trump administration has controversially cited political reasons in stripping others of their visas, including several hundred people involved in Gaza protests on US universities campuses.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2025