Watch: Turkey Launches Criminal Probe After Enes Kanter Freedom Stomps on Photo of Erdogan’s Face

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported this week that Istanbul prosecutors had launched a criminal “investigation” into former NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom for “insulting the president,” a crime in Turkey.

The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), an advocacy organization led by exiled Turkish journalists, translated the Anadolu report on Wednesday, noting that Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered multiple similar probes against Kanter Freedom in the past five years. As of 2021, Turkish law enforcement had activated nine arrest warrants against Kanter Freedom, most for “insulting the president” or “terrorism.”

Kanter Freedom is a member of a Turkish Islamic movement known as “Hizmet” led by Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, a former Erdogan ally that the Turkish president blames for the failed coup against him in 2016. Erdogan ordered a nationwide purge of soldiers, government officials, judges, teachers, and others in prominent positions following the coup, resulting in over 100,000 people detained, fired, or otherwise punished for alleged ties to Gülen.

The Erdogan regime has repeatedly demanded the United States extradite Gülen for his alleged role in the failed coup, but American officials have said Turkey has not offered evidence linking Gülen to the event, a fact Turkish officials later admitted.

The Turkish government considers Hizmet a terrorist organization and refers to it as the “Fethullahist Terrorist Organization” (FETO). Kanter Freedom’s “terrorism” charges stem from his membership in the group and his participation in charity basketball events and other activities tied to Hizmet.

Anadolu Agency’s report on Kanter Freedom’s latest criminal investigation, published on Saturday, stated only that the Instabul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had opened a probe into the basketball player for the crime of “insulting the president.”

“According to the information received, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an ex officio investigation against Enes Kanter [Freedom] regarding the video containing the image of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” Anadolu noted.

The SCF report on Wednesday confirmed that the alleged “crime” being investigated is a video Kanter Freedom uploaded to Twitter last week participating in a campaign called “Step on Tyranny” launched by the Oslo Freedom Forum. The campaign consists of the printing of floor decor featuring the faces of global dictators including Erdogan, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping – who Kanter Freedom vocally condemned shortly before his abrupt exit from the NBA – and encouraging participants to stomp on their faces. Kanter Freedom happily obliged.

“I ain’t afraid!” Kanter Freedom wrote on Twitter, sharing a video in which he wipes his shoes on Erdogan’s face.

Kanter Freedom published a similar video stepping on Xi’s face with the caption, “this is what ruthless Dictators deserve.”

On Monday, Kanter published a video on his Twitter profile of what he claimed to be a counter-campaign launched by the Turkish regime encouraging Turkish citizens to “kill him on the spot.” The accompanying video shows a man stepping on photos of Kanter Freedom.

At the end of the video, a man appears brandishing a knife and shouting, “I swear to all of you, whoever says anything against President Erdogan, I will chop his head off with this knife. I swear if I don’t do it, then I’m a son of a bitch.”

Kanter Freedom did not provide a source for the video; it appears to be a Turkish news broadcast.

“Turkish prosecutors are already seeking a four-year prison sentence for his alleged membership in the Gülen movement, a religious group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen,” SCF recalled. “Turkey had canceled Freedom’s passport in 2017 and attempted to have him deported from Romania on May 20, 2017 during one of his international trips. His passport was briefly seized by the Romanian police upon a request from the Turkish government. The NBA said it had worked with the State Department to ensure his release in Romania.”

Kanter Freedom began his activism against Erdogan shortly after the failed 2016 coup with the full support of the NBA, comparing Erdogan to Adolf Hitler and denouncing the Turkish state for arresting his father. His family publicly denounced Kanter shortly after he began to publicly condemn the Turkish regime and Kanter Freedom often discusses the pain of having severed ties with his immediate family.

As of July 2021, Turkish journalists reported that Erdogan’s regime had issued six arrest warrant for Kanter Freedom for “defaming President Erdogan” and three for unspecified “terrorism” charges. No Turkish law enforcement officials has ever accused Kanter Freedom of any act of violence, nor has any evidence of him participating in acts of terrorism surfaced.

“Hey, Erdogan — I don’t care if it’s nine or 9,000, I’m not giving up,” Kanter Freedom wrote on Twitter following the publication of reports of the nine warrants.

The Turkish government also attempted to force Interpol to issue a “red notice,” or request for arrest, for Kanter Freedom, but failed to obtain one given the lack of evidence that Kanter Freedom had engaged in legitimate criminal activity.

Kanter Freedom appeared to lose the NBA’s support last year when he expanded his criticism of totalitarianism to China, one of the NBA’s most lucrative business partners. Kanter Freedom launched a campaign against China’s human rights abuses against Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, Falun Gong practitioners, and anyone whose thoughts may threaten communist supremacy, first debuting shoes on the court featuring pro-Tibet designs. Kanter Freedom later revealed that NBA officials “begged” him not to wear the shoes, a request he denied as no NBA rules prohibited the apparel.

The Boston Celtics, the team he was on at the time, dramatically reduced his time on the court following his anti-communist campaign and ultimately traded him to the Houston Rockets in February, who dropped him. He is currently not in the NBA.

The Chinese government promptly began airing NBA games on television again shortly after Kanter Freedom’s exit from the league. The Communist Party had stopped broadcasting the games on television in 2019 after then-General Manager of the Houston Rockets Daryl Morey posted a statement on social media in support of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

China appears to continue to censor games featuring the Philadelphia 76ers, Morey’s current team, though the timing of the NBA’s return to Chinese screens left the ban unclear at press time.

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