US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has once again drawn controversy and backlash over his new tattoo which spells \u2018kafir\u2019 (infidel), which many say is Islamophobic, various international media outlets reported on Friday.<\/p>\n
Hegseth posted pictures on his X account where he joined the US Navy\u2019s SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One at a base in Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on Wednesday. One of the pictures showed a new tattoo on his arm that reads \u2018kafir\u2019, which according to Turkish outlet TRT World is the Arabic word for infidel or disbeliever.<\/p>\n
Activists and experts have argued that the tattoo is an Islamophobic symbol from the man overseeing the US military.<\/p>\n
\u201cHegseth just got a kafir tattoo under his Deus Vult tattoo \u2014 a Crusader slogan. This isn\u2019t just a personal choice; it\u2019s a clear symbol of Islamophobia from the man overseeing US wars,\u201d Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian activist, said on X.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Kafir\u2019\u201d has been weaponised by far-right Islamophobes to mock and vilify Muslims,\u201c she added. \u201cIt\u2019s not about his personal beliefs. It\u2019s about how these beliefs translate into policy \u2014 how they shape military decisions, surveillance programmes, and foreign interventions targeting Muslim countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writer Tam Hussain said the tattoo was \u201cnot a good look\u201d for Hegseth, primarily when the term was used in the Quran to refer to someone who rejects God.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the Muslim world, the tattoo will be seen as an open declaration of Hegseth\u2019s enmity towards them, which will be confirmed by the bombing of a hospital in Yemen,\u201d Hussain said on X.<\/p>\n
\u2018Anti-Muslim hostility\u2019
\nThe Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in a statement denounced the new tattoo, calling it \u201ca sign of both anti-Muslim hostility and personal insecurity\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTattooing the Arabic word kafir \u2014 which essentially refers to a person who knowingly conceals or denies fundamental, divine truths \u2014 on his body is a sign of both anti-Muslim hostility and personal insecurity,\u201d Nihad Awad, national executive director of CAIR, said in the statement, according to USA Today.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears Islam lives so rent-free in Pete Hegseth\u2019s head that he feels the need to stamp himself with tattoos declaring his opposition to Islam alongside a tattoo declaring his affinity for the failed Crusaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council said that while Hegseth can tattoo himself all he wants, he should keep in mind that he leads the US military, where thousands of American Muslims are sworn to defend the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t see American Muslims running around with tattoos declaring their opposition to Christianity because we are secure in our own faith, we respect the beliefs of our neighbours, and, in any case, most Muslims do not wear tattoos for religious reasons,\u201d CAIR added.<\/p>\n
Prior controversies
\nThis is not the first time Hegseth has drawn controversy and backlash, especially from Muslims.<\/p>\n
On December 1, 2024, The New Yorker published a report that went through Hegseth\u2019s past controversies. One of them cited a complaint from Concerned Veterans for America employees, which claimed that Hegseth shouted \u201ckill all Muslims\u201d while he was drunk at a bar in Ohio in 2015.<\/p>\n
TRT World reported that Hegseth was once again brought under scrutiny due to his \u2018Deus Bult\u2019 tattoo \u2014 Latin for \u201cGod Wills it\u201d \u2014 which it says is a slogan used as a battle cry by the Crusaders as they \u201ccommitted acts of genocide against Muslims and Jews\u201d.<\/p>\n
The outlet reported that Hegseth also has a tattoo of the Jerusalem Cross. \u201cThat cross has a long history in Christianity but has lately been co-opted by some far-right groups as a symbol of the fight for Western civilisation,\u201d TRT World wrote.<\/p>\n
The criticism of the tattoo comes at a time of increased scrutiny for the defense secretary, The Guardian reported. Members of Congress in the US are calling for an investigation into Hegseth and the other officials involved in the Signal leak that inadvertently exposed operational details of US plans to bomb Yemen as several representatives have called for him to resign, it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has once again drawn controversy and backlash over his new tattoo which spells \u2018kafir\u2019 (infidel), which many say is Islamophobic, various international media outlets reported on Friday. Hegseth posted pictures on his X account where he joined the US Navy\u2019s SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One at a base in Pearl […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7513,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7511\/revisions\/7513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}