Dozens of angry European lawmakers banged their hands on their desks after being denied a moment of silence to honor Charlie Kirk. Backers of the American conservative activist rallied at U.S. embassies in Europe and Africa. And supportive world leaders chimed in, lauding him as a friend and inspiration.
The assassination of Kirk in broad daylight at a Utah university this week has resonated well beyond the United States, highlighting in democracies around the globe the same yawning political divide that has riven America.
The outpouring of grief, anger and defiance over his death also testified to his influence and impact abroad, especially among groups on the right as diverse as white Afrikaners in South Africa, anti-immigration parties in Europe, libertarians in South America and ultranationalist Israelis in the Middle East. It also gave those movements an opportunity to air their grievances against their own political opponents.
“Charlie Kirk’s death is the result of the international hate campaign waged by the progressive-liberal left,” Viktor Orbán — Hungary’s populist prime minister who, like Kirk, has aligned himself with U.S. President Donald Trump and the American leader’s MAGA movement — wrote on X.
The reaction to Kirk’s death among groups on the right reflects the proliferation and rise of conservative and nationalist movements around the world. And Kirk — a Christian conservative, staunch supporter of gun rights and critic of the political and cultural elite — was emblematic of the way political conversations have increasingly crossed borders.
Grief but also anger
Authorities say Kirk was killed by a single shot while taking questions during an outdoor event Wednesday at Utah Valley University.
Many people worldwide, regardless of political stripe, expressed dismay at such grisly violence in the midst of a public debate, and politicians across the spectrum denounced the killing.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party, called it “heartbreaking that a young family has been robbed of a father and a husband,” adding: “We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear — there can be no justification for political violence.”
Kirk wasn’t a household name outside the United States, but he had a fervent following among supporters abroad and a big social-media presence. He spoke in the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea this year, and his Turning Point USA has international offshoots.
In the wake of his killing, many political figures and commentators on the right took aim at their political opponents, calling members of the left “the enemy” and vowing “resistance” against their foes.
“The left is, at all times and in all places, a violent phenomenon filled with hatred,” wrote Argentine President Javier Milei, a radical libertarian, on X alongside a photo of him, Trump and Kirk. Milei has repeatedly railed against Socialists, feminists and transgender people and praised Trump’s MAGA movement for fighting what he calls “woke ideology.”
In Berlin, about 150 people held a vigil in Kirk’s honor outside the U.S. Embassy on Thursday, and there were minor clashes with protesters, police said, testifying to the divisions.
In the European Union’s Parliament, dozens of rank-and-file lawmakers banged their hands angrily on their desks on Thursday after the parliament’s vice president denied an effort by Swedish member Charlie Weimers, of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, to lead a moment of silence honoring Kirk in the chamber.
Seen as inspiration and an ally
Some rising young political stars who might be seen as international counterparts to the 31-year-old Kirk spoke of the inspiration they would take from his legacy.
Nikolas Ferreira, who received the most votes of any federal lawmaker in Brazil’s last election, posted on social media that Kirk’s death “cries out against injustice and awakens hearts.”
“They want to silence us, but what they achieved was to awaken us. From every tear, courage is born; from every injustice, resistance is forged,” the 29-year-old former YouTuber said.
In South Africa, the assassination has resonated with white conservative groups who claim that South Africa’s Black-led government is pursuing an anti-white agenda. The government has strongly rejected those allegations and denounced “misinformation” from South African and American conservatives as intended to undermine a majority-Black country.
Kirk voiced support of Trump’s program that offered refugee status in the U.S. to members of South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority, and said earlier this year that the United States needed more white, Christian South Africans to come.
The AfriForum group, an Afrikaner lobby group, held a small vigil for Kirk outside the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria. Its youth wing said his killing was “a wake-up call that points to a global intolerance towards conservative thinking.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the most religious and nationalist government in Israel’s history, called Kirk a “defender of our common Judeo-Christian civilization.”
“Charlie was more than a friend of Israel. He was a great champion of our shared roots and values,” Netanyahu, a polarizing leader who has ruled Israel nearly uninterrupted for the last 16 years, said in a post on X.
Other figures on the right offered more somber words.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, one of the European leaders who is seen as most friendly with Trump, said she was “shocked” about the killing of Kirk.
“An atrocious murder, a deep wound for democracy and for those who believe in freedom,” she wrote on X. “My condolences to his family, to his loved ones, and to the American conservative community.” ____
Associated Press writers Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa; Brian Melley in London; David Biller in Rome; Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Gabriela Sá Pessoa in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.
