Enlarge image
Enes Kanter wore shoes marked "Free Tibet"
Photo:
Mary Schwalm / AP
Basketball star Enes Kanter has sharply criticized the Chinese government.
Dennis Schröder's teammate at the Boston Celtics from the NBA called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator” on Twitter and declared that “Tibet belongs to the Tibetan people”.
Kanter is again causing tension between Beijing and the US basketball league.
During the game against the New York Knicks (134: 138), Kanter also wore shoes marked "Free Tibet".
In China, the broadcast of the game was stopped, reports the Washington Post.
"Tibet belongs to the Tibetans, I am here to speak out and speak out against what is happening in Tibet under the brutal rule of the Chinese government," Kanter said in a video message he posted on social media.
In 2019, China temporarily halted TV broadcasts of NBA games after Daryl Morey, former Houston Rockets general manager, Twitter supported pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
The NBA then apologized to China.
Tibet is under Chinese control.
Human rights activists and exiled Tibetans accuse Beijing of religious repression, torture and forced sterilization, among other things.
Afraid of Erdogan's long arm
Kanter, born in Zurich to Turkish parents, is known for making loud political statements.
In 2019 he made a name for himself as a critic of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime in Turkey.
Kanter is a supporter of the Gülen movement.
Erdogan blames Fethullah Gülen, who also lives in the United States, for the attempted coup in August 2016.
Kanter reported in January 2019 that he had received death threats and that he never went out on the streets alone in everyday life.
The USA is the only place in the world where he still feels safe.
He refrained from traveling abroad with his team - such as to London.
The basketball player feared he could be killed outside of North America for criticizing the Turkish president.
bam / sid
