Boston Celtics center and towering human rights advocate Enes Kanter has revealed that NBA representatives tried to get him to stop wearing shoes with messages that were critical of China, and even suggested that he could be banned from the league.
Kanter, who was born in oppressed Turkey, has engaged in a series of videos recently calling for China to stop oppressing the people of Tibet and for the communist giant to put an end to its forced labor camps in which the country’s Uyghur minorities are constantly shipped to serve as slave labor in China’s factories.
Now he says that NBA officials are attacking him in quiet warnings delivered out of the public eye.
During a recent interview with CNN, Kanter revealed that the NBA was attempting to scare him into putting an end to his focus on the league’s multibillion-dollar business partner, China. Kanter says that league officials told him he could be banned for criticizing China and wearing anti-China shoes.
Kanter also said that he asked NBA officials — including league chief Adam Silver — if he was breaking any actual league rules for behavior but was told he wasn’t.
WATCH:
Kanter has been on a roll lately with his advocacy for those oppressed by the red Chinese.
Just this week, for instance, Kanter posted a tweet exclaiming that Taiwan is a free country and “is not a part of China and never will be.”
He also said that he hopes to see Tibetans, Uyghurs, Taiwanese, and the people of Hong Kong all standing free of Chinese oppression.
In October, Kanter posted a series of videos and messages directed at Nike urging them to stop doing business with the slave labor camps in China. He also offered to pay for a fact-finding trip to China for himself and Nike CEO Phil Knight to see how slave labor can be eliminated from the manufacturing supply chain.
Kanter’s drive for human rights is not a late campaign, either. The 29-year-old has been a stalwart supporter of freedom in his native country of Turkey with his opposition to dictator President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He has been such a strong critic of Erdogan that the Turkish dictator has issued at least nine arrest warrants for Kanter charging him with “insulting the president.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.