Monday 29 November 2021
“Freedom” for Erdogan critics
Resolute NBA professional swaps passport and name
He likes to mess with authoritarian politicians, he railed against human rights violations. Basketball professional Enes Kanter loses his Turkish passport as a result. But now he’s getting a new one, the American one. At the same time, he is making a statement with a new name.
Enes Kanter chooses freedom. “Freedom on 3 …! 1 … 2 … 3 # FREEDOM,” wrote the NBA pro on Instagram. On Monday, the 29-year-old will receive the long-awaited US passport, but not only that. According to “The Athletic”, the basketball player will also have a new name registered and will in future be called Enes Kanter Freedom.
That fits with Kanter’s critical spirit, who repeatedly raises his voice for justice and against authorities – without any consideration for losses. For years, the Zurich-born center of the Boston Celtics has been a sharp critic of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime in his native Turkey, where his passport was canceled. Now he’s getting another.
Kanter had been applying for American citizenship for some time. Now the team-mate of the German national player Dennis Schröder announced completion. “I passed my naturalization test. At the end of the month I will officially become a US citizen,” the center said last week.
Kanter has lived in the United States since 2009, for him the “greatest country in the world”. After a year of high school in Simi Valley / California, he was drafted by Utah Jazz in third place in 2011, after which Kanter played for Oklahoma City Thunder, the New York Knicks and the Portland Trail Blazers, then went to Boston, back to Portland and back to Boston.
The politically active Kanter had once again caused a sensation through public criticism of China for its dealings with Tibet. He called the Chinese President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator” and in one game he wore shoes marked “Free Tibet”. Because of the human rights violations, Kanter called for a boycott of the winter games in Beijing.
When it comes to Turkey, too, Kanter doesn’t mince his words. In 2017 he described Erdogan as “Hitler of our century”.