EXCLUSIVE — Former NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom was in Vatican City for a children’s basketball game when he was hit with alarming news: Turkey placed a $500,000 bounty on him.
After the announcement, a range of hitmen, serial killers, and members of the mafia could have been on his tail, eager to cash in on the lucrative reward for his capture.
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Freedom believes the bounty was intended to send him a clear message: to “shut up” about Turkey’s human rights record, but he has no plans of backing down.
“Whenever I speak, it pretty much like goes everywhere in the world, and the Turkish Government hates that. So they try to do whatever they can [to] shut me up. I mean, they put my dad in jail. [That didn’t] work. Now they put a bounty on my head,” Freedom told the Washington Examiner. “They’re literally trying every way possible.”
After learning of the bounty, Freedom talked with the FBI. It warned him the situation “could get very dangerous,” and he quickly traveled back to the United States. When news of the bounty spread, several members of Congress and friends checked in with him to ensure he was safe. Despite the safety concerns, Freedom is adamant about using his platform to raise awareness for human rights.
“There are so many innocent people out there not only in Turkey but all around the world, so I am trying to be the voice of all those innocent people out there who don’t have a voice,” he contended.
Freedom was catapulted into the national spotlight in 2021 for his unabashed criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party. He donned graphic shoes rebuking the treatment of Uyghur minorities, Tibetans, and more.
Prior to that meteoric rise to prominence, he was outspoken about Turkey. He was raised there before he immigrated to the U.S.
Back in 2013, Freedom started reproving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid a corruption scandal that implicated numerous top Turkish government officials. Then, around 2016, when Erdogan cracked down hard on dissidents in the aftermath of a failed military coup, Freedom began stepping up his public condemnations of the regime.
At one point, he called Erdogan the “Hitler of our century.”
“I always talk about how Turkey is going backwards every day. Erdogan’s government is just literally destroying Turkey and all the neighbors around Turkey,” Freedom explained.
“Erdogan is not only a problem in Turkey, but you look at what’s happening in Cyprus. You look at what’s happening in Syria. You look at what’s happening to the Kurds. You look at what’s happening in Greece. Everyone is complaining.”
Erdogan’s government quickly retaliated against Freedom when he began speaking out. It briefly arrested his father, revoked Freedom’s citizenship, and pulled his passport. Turkey also placed him on the Interior Ministry’s “Terrorist Wanted List,” alleging that he’s a member of a terrorist organization.
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His family also publicly disowned him for his support of Turkish scholar Fethullah Gulen, who is living in exile in the U.S. after being accused of orchestrating the coup attempt in 2016. As a result, Freedom hasn’t had communication with his family in nearly a decade and is barred from returning to Turkey.
“They were getting harassed and they were getting affected so much to have to put a statement out there,” Freedom recalled. “There’s no communication because if there’s any kind of communication, text message, emails, Skype calls or anything like that — they will be jailed the next day.”
Turkey is set to hold elections later this year. Despite a bevy of crises, such as inflation gripping the country, Freedom is concerned that change won’t come. He noted conversations he had with individuals knowledgeable about Turkish politics.
“They said, ‘Erdogan is going to do whatever he can to win the election. He’s going to cheat. He’s going to spill, is going to create chaos. So we don’t really think that he’s going to lose, so be ready for it,'” Freedom explained.
He wants the Biden administration to “take some solid action” against Ankara, Turkey’s capital, such as sanctions.
Formerly known as Enes Kanter, the basketball player changed his surname to “Freedom” to celebrate becoming a United States citizen in November 2021. At that point, he was generating headlines for protests against the CCP while playing for the Boston Celtics.
Last year, after 11 seasons in the NBA, Freedom was traded and then waived. The move left him without a team. He has accused the NBA of parting with him because of his activism against the CCP — an accusation the NBA has fervently denied.
“Only thing I talked about was against human rights violations and political prisoners in China. Just because of that, you know, obviously the NBA — it’s not a secret anymore, but it’s bowing down to Chinese dictatorship, and they’re trying to do whatever they can to make China happy,” Freedom alleged.
The NBA had been supportive of Freedom during his protests against Turkey. For example, it fired a Turkish vendor that failed to mention him when his team won a Western Conference semifinal game in 2019. But now, Freedom is mulling a lawsuit against the league over his exit.
In the time since his departure from the NBA, Freedom has been working with basketball camps organized by his Freedom For All foundation. Those camps feature Muslims, Christians, and Jews playing on the same team and learning “how to communicate with each other.”
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“The most important thing in life is to leave your differences on a table and try to find what we have in common because we only have one world to live in. So we have to make this world better together,” Freedom said.
The Washington Examiner contacted the State Department and Turkey’s Embassy for comment.
