Enes Kanter says Donald Trump should do ‘something’ about Recep Erdogan’s crackdown on critics
"People ask me where I’m from. I don’t know how to answer."
Less than 24 hours after making his regular season debut at TD Garden, Enes Kanter suited up again Tuesday, but with different teammates.
The Boston Celtics center joined Massachusetts lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to speak out against Turkish President Recep Erdogan on the eve of the authoritarian leader’s visit to the White House.
The 27-year-old native of Turkey has been a consistent critic of Erdogan’s attempts to suppress dissent and has himself faced repercussions — both at home and abroad — for his support of Fethullah Gülen, a moderate Islamic scholar living in exile in Pennsylvania.
Gonna have some fun in DC today 😉 pic.twitter.com/YO3mFulXjw
— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) November 12, 2019
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Kanter joined Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to introduce legislation condemning the Turkish government’s abuse of counterterrorism authorities to target Gülen supporters. Later in the day, he also took part in a congressional briefing with Rep. Seth Moulton on the subject.
Kanter said he simply hoped he could use his platform to shine a light on Erdogan’s actions as he arrives in the nation’s capital to meet Wednesday with President Donald Trump.
Despite threats from the Turkish gov’t, @EnesKanter continues to courageously speak out for human rights.
Thank you, Enes, for joining @RonWyden, @PressFreedom & I to introduce a bill to condemn President Erdogan’s authoritarianism. We will always defend your freedom of speech. pic.twitter.com/IQdbVflcgV
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) November 12, 2019
“My problem is with the regime in Turkey,” he said during the event with Moulton. “If you look at it, there’s no democracy. There’s no freedom in our country.”
A State Department report released earlier this year said that Turkish authorities had arrested or imprisoned more than 80,000 citizens over alleged ties to Gülen, who Erdogan blames for a 2016 coup attempt. Additionally, the Committee to Protect Journalists describes Turkey as one of the world’s “leading jailers of journalists.” According to Markey, the regime has shut down around 180 media outlets.
During his appearances Tuesday, Kanter repeatedly declined to criticize Trump for hosting Erdogan this week, but said he hoped the Republican president would “encourage” the Turkish leader to “stop jailing the opposition and silencing the media.”
“What I’m trying to highlight is the human rights abuses that the regime is doing,” he said during the event with Moulton, referring to the reports of torture and rape of imprisoned Gülen supporters in Turkish jails.
Kanter lightly suggested that Trump “do something about it.”
https://www.facebook.com/RepMoulton/videos/434485397260258
Despite his status as a celebrity NBA player, Kanter’s family has faced serious consequences in Turkey over their political views.
His father, who was fired from his job as a professor, is now facing potential jail time of five to 10 years for supporting Gülen and Kanter said his sister can’t get a job because of her last name. He also said he couldn’t communicate with his family, because the Turkish government could use it to accuse them of terrorism.
Kanter himself was briefly stranded in a Romanian airport in 2017 after his passport was revoked by the Turkish government, which has since put out an international warrant for his arrest. As a result, the 6-foot-11 NBA player missed his teams’ games in Toronto and London last season.
Since joining the Celtics this offseason, Kanter has also blamed the Turkish consulate for pressuring a New York mosque to cancel one of his basketball camps and said he was harassed by Erdogan supporters outside a mosque in Cambridge. Still, he has only amplified his criticism.
“How can I stay silent?” he wrote in a Boston Globe opinion piece last month. “There are tens of thousands of people — including teachers, doctors, members of the judiciary and military, lawyers, bureaucrats, journalists, and activists — in prisons for years just because they’re not die-hard followers of Erdogan.”
Turkish officials have described Gülen and his supporters as members of a terrorist organization. Moulton said Tuesday that a member of the local consulate even attended one of his events this week in Boston to make the argument that Kanter was a “terrorist.”
“The only thing I terrorize is the basketball rim,” he quipped Tuesday, recycling his viral response to Turkey’s extradition request earlier this year.
More seriously, Kanter said he has kept his political advocacy focused on three things: freedom, democracy, and the Turkish regime’s human rights abuses.
“If that makes you a terrorist, then I don’t know what to say,” he said.
Kanter said he loves the Turkish people and wishes he could return to his native country, but is working to gain American citizenship by 2021. In the meantime, Kanter said he remains somewhat country-less.
“It’s crazy because people ask me where I’m from,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t know how to answer.”
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