Post by account_disabled on Mar 7, 2024 18:07:24 GMT 12
Many people have got it wrong with the footballers and staff of the Turkish national football team who celebrate by honoring like soldiers for every goal they score. But things are not so black and white. To understand their plight, we should read the story of Enes Kanter, the Turkish NBA basketball player who plays with Boston Celtic. Just these days, Kanter, who together with Hakan Shukur are the athletes declared enemies of the regime in Turkey, has sent a letter to the Boston Globe newspaper. "How can I be silent? In Turkey, there are thousands of people in prisons. Among them many professors, doctors, judges, lawyers, journalists and activists. They are there because they do not agree with Erdogan. Hundreds of children are growing up in small cells next to their imprisoned mothers.
"Democracy means having the freedom to Cambodia Telegram Number Data speak, not being locked up in a cell for this," Kanter writes. The problems for the Turkish basketball talent started with a post on Twitter, the day after the failed coup d'état in Turkey three years ago. At that time, he played for Oklahoma, always in the NBA, and harshly criticized the forms used by Erdogan. Just a few hours later, the 27-year-old receives hundreds of threats, not only from unknown persons but also from exponents of politics in Turkey. Read also: VIDEO/ "Crazy" weather, a "terrible" hailstorm whitens Tirana The well-known actor is again accused of sexual harassment A month later, the police raid Kanter's parents' house in Istanbul. They confiscate all electronic devices and keep family members under surveillance.
Meanwhile, his younger brother is excluded from Turkish citizenship. That's not enough: the father is sent to prison for five days and after his release his passport is confiscated. In these conditions, the father does the action that we in communist Albania knew very well. He distanced himself from his son through an open letter addressed to Erdogan: "Enes can no longer carry our family name because he has tarnished it. More shame, I apologize to the president and all the Turkish people for having such a son". A year later, in 2017, Kanter was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison because he had compared Erdogan to Hitler. In the same year, while he was in Indonesia for a charity activity, he was informed by his colleagues that the local police wanted to arrest him.
"Democracy means having the freedom to Cambodia Telegram Number Data speak, not being locked up in a cell for this," Kanter writes. The problems for the Turkish basketball talent started with a post on Twitter, the day after the failed coup d'état in Turkey three years ago. At that time, he played for Oklahoma, always in the NBA, and harshly criticized the forms used by Erdogan. Just a few hours later, the 27-year-old receives hundreds of threats, not only from unknown persons but also from exponents of politics in Turkey. Read also: VIDEO/ "Crazy" weather, a "terrible" hailstorm whitens Tirana The well-known actor is again accused of sexual harassment A month later, the police raid Kanter's parents' house in Istanbul. They confiscate all electronic devices and keep family members under surveillance.
Meanwhile, his younger brother is excluded from Turkish citizenship. That's not enough: the father is sent to prison for five days and after his release his passport is confiscated. In these conditions, the father does the action that we in communist Albania knew very well. He distanced himself from his son through an open letter addressed to Erdogan: "Enes can no longer carry our family name because he has tarnished it. More shame, I apologize to the president and all the Turkish people for having such a son". A year later, in 2017, Kanter was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison because he had compared Erdogan to Hitler. In the same year, while he was in Indonesia for a charity activity, he was informed by his colleagues that the local police wanted to arrest him.