Turkish television will not broadcast the playoffs of Enes Kanter. He says the government is "afraid" of him.

Jacob Bogage, the Washington Post

published

2:47 pm PDT, Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Turkish sports broadcaster S Sport will not be announcing the NBA West Conference final between the Golden State Warriors and the Portland Trail Blazers due to the political stance of the Portland center, Enes Kanter, an opponent of the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"I can say clearly that we will not broadcast the Warriors-Blazers series," S Sport commentator Omer Sarac told Reuters. "In addition, if Portland reaches the final, [that] will not be broadcast either. . . . This situation is not about us, but it's what it is. "

S Sport is the main television channel of the NBA in Turkey, according to Reuters. Matches will still be available in Turkey on NBA TV International and NBA League Pass, according to the league.

Kanter strongly criticizes the Erdogan government for its record on human rights. He has been associated with the exiled Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by the government of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016. Gulen, a US permanent resident, lives in exile in Pennsylvania. .

Kanter, 26, is wanted to be arrested in his country of origin. The Turkish media, largely controlled by the Erdogan government since the coup attempt, portray it as an enemy of the state and not as Turkey's most accomplished basketball player.

"All these NBA fans want to watch the Western Conference finals, but they can not all because of me, it's funny and crazy. [The Turkish government] is afraid of an NBA player, "Kanter told the Washington Post during a telephone interview Tuesday. I am not a politician. This is not my job, but everyone is so afraid of Erdogan that I have to step in and defend freedom and human rights. This shows that it is a dictatorship in Turkey. "

Kanter said the Turkish broadcasters were not televising the 2016 West Conference Finals between the Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder, when Kanter was playing for the Thunder.

"I remember receiving all these comments from the Turks," he said. "They were so mad at me because they could not watch the games, I did not stop saying:" It's not my fault. " "

This is the second time in this year's playoffs that Kanter is censored in his home country. The NBA's Turkish Twitter account removed him from his tweets during the second round of Portland against the Denver Nuggets. This led the NBA to fire the local social media provider who was managing the account.

Kanter said afterwards that it was a sign that the one who was managing the account was afraid of going through the Erdogan regime.

"They know that if they inscribed my name, they could have problems or even end up in jail," he said at the time. "This shows that it is a dictatorship, which shows that there is no freedom of expression in Turkey."

Kanter has not returned to Turkey since 2016; Upon his departure, the government canceled his passport and attempted to detain him before he could return to the United States. Since then, he has called Erdogan "the Hitler of our century" and has not left the United States or Canada, fearing to be arrested or murdered by Turkish agents.

In January, in January, Erdogan asked the international law enforcement authorities to detain Kanter and send him back to the Turkish authorities.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden wrote to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday to ask for help to facilitate Kanter's trip to Canada, in case the Trail Blazers and Raptors Toronto would qualify for the finals of the NBA.

In the face of heightened threats, Kanter did not travel with Portland to face Toronto in March.

"If the Portland Trail Blazers and Toronto Raptors reach the finals of the NBA, Mr. Kanter will again have to take into account the safety risks associated with business travel outside the United States," Wyden writes. a letter, published by Kanter on social media. . "While President Erdogan continues to lead Turkey on a dark and authoritarian path, Mr. Kanter is far from being the only one to face the persecution, but without his Turkish passport – and still not able to claim a US passport – Mr. Kanter finds himself in a particularly precarious legal situation as he is a public figure who uses his brutal pulpit to denounce a dangerous tyrant. "

Wyden asked Trudeau to publicly declare that Canada would not respect the "red notice" that Turkey sent via Interpol to ask foreign countries to detain Kanter.

Over the weekend, Kanter posted on Twitter a greeting video for Mother's Day, in the hope that she would reach her mother, which he has not seen since the last departure from Turkey. At that time, his father, a former university professor, was jailed for his son's political stance. "Just be proud of your son because your son is sacrificing everything to defend human rights, democracy and freedom," Kanter said in the video.

"I wanted to celebrate it on the occasion of Mother's Day," he said in a telephone interview. "I thought, I can not call her. I can not send her any SMS, so I thought, I'm going to make a video for her."

Kanter calls himself Gulen's "adopted son" because communicating with his biological family or friends in Turkey would endanger them, he said.

The first game of the Western Conference finals begins Tuesday at 9 pm and will be televised in the United States on ESPN.