Last summer,
a failed military coup in Turkey left at least 249 people dead.
In the months since,
the country’s president, Recep Erdoğan, has tried to silence his opposition—
largely by putting them in jail.
Over the past year,
the Turkish government has detained more than 100,000 people.
Erdoğan’s government has accused many of these prisoners
of being followers of religious leader Fethullah Gulen,
the man the blames for organizing the coup.
In Turkey, the crackdown has spread rampant fear among Erdoğan’s critics.
But in the United States,
it’s inspired one follower of Gulen to become a new and unlikely voice of dissent.
— Who should I pick?
— Are you gonna be OKC, or should I be OKC?
— I’ll be OKC.
— Is it weird to play as yourself?
— I don’t pick myself.
— You don’t pick yourself in the game?
— Sometimes I do, but…
— You can sub yourself in whenever you want.
— Okay. — I won’t judge you.
— Enes Kanter is 25-years-old and 6 feet, 11 inches tall.
— Are you kidding me?
— At least you can hit threes, right?
— Yeah...
— He plays in the NBA,
where he’s earned a reputation for introducing players to halal food,
starring in goofy videos with teammates…
— Roomies!
— ...and speaking out against Turkey’s president, Erdoğan:
— He’s a terrible man, definitely.
— Oh, thank you.
— Kanter and I ordered dinner to my apartment.
He’d spent the day fasting for Ramadan.
— Let’s see, I got a large... shish kabab.
— Okay.
— I got a chicken mixed grill...
and I got a large vegetable platter with hummus, baba ganoush…
— Where’s yours?
— Kanter is a longtime follower of Gulen,
a 76-year-old preacher and outspoken critic of Turkey’s president.
For the past few decades,
Gulen has lived in exile in rural Pennsylvania.
But that hasn’t stopped Erdoğan from labeling him and his followers “terrorists”
— Erdoğan is using his power to abuse people.
And that’s what’s really making me, you know, drive me crazy.
He doesn’t do nothing wrong, he’s always right, he’s always perfect.
If you don’t believe in that,
then he wants you to be out of the country
or he will put you in a jail if you keep talking about it.
— Kanter’s one of Turkey’s most famous athletes,
so his political views, which he often shares on social media, have enormous reach.
And his opinions haven’t gone unnoticed by Erdoğan’s regime.
Last month,
the Turkish government abruptly canceled Kanter’s passport,
leading to a confusing few hours in Bucharest, Romania,
where he was stranded at the airport.
— I’ll, uh, keep you posted, guys.
But just pray for us...
— Eventually, he was allowed to fly to New York.
— But a few days later,
Turkish media reported that Turkey had issued a warrant for Kanter’s arrest,
accusing him of being a member of a “terror group.”
— What do you think would have happened if you were sent back to Turkey?
— I would be in a jail,
and probably the second day, you will be hearing from the news,
“Oh, he just got poisoned and he’s just dead.”
“He got food poisoning.”
Or, “He had depression, he hanged himself.”
I don’t know, I’m just giving examples.
Because when I talk, it goes everywhere.
They hate it.
— Two weeks after Turkey canceled Kanter’s travel documents,
it jailed his father for almost a week—
even though his parents have publicly disowned him.
Kanter hasn’t spoken to them in more than a year.
— They put a letter out there and say we disown Enes,
because he is speaking out against Erdoğan.
If they didn’t send a letter out, then they would’ve been in a jail last year.
— Right.
When I saw when I saw that your parents had put that statement out,
my first thought was…
but Enes grew up going to a Gulenist school?
— Yes, so I didn’t… in second grade, I didn’t understand what kind of school it was.
— Do you think that your father was arrested because you were speaking out?
— Of course.
It was kind of like a warning for me:
if you don’t stop talking, we’ll put your dad in jail,
and your mom will be next.
They think I’m going to stop talking, but no.
When they do it, I want to talk more,
to tell all these people, like, this is what’s really going on.
— Do you worry that next time it won’t just be jail?
— I mean, the worst thing that could happen is just,
you know, the jail, or just they’re gonna torture them in jail.
They’re going to, you know, just get raped,
and that’s the most terrible thing that will happen.
I understand my family is of course important—
I love my family, I love my country—
but I have to do this for all of the innocent people.
— Kanter signed a $70 million, four-year contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2015.
His public battle with the Turkish government
could make it harder for him to honor some of his obligations.
— So what what happens next with you?
You don’t have a Turkish passport.
You have a green card here, right?
— Yes.
— Is the NBA helping you, are the Oklahoma City Thunder helping you?
— I’m gonna talk to them,
because, I mean, we’re gonna play against Toronto Raptors in Canada.
So I need to be able to leave the country.
— Have you thought about the fact that you might never be able to go back to Turkey?
— That’s the risk I’m taking.
That’s the risk I’m taking, and of course I—
I said before, I love my country, I love my flag.
I miss my, you know, Turkish food.
But this is way bigger than basketball.
This is way bigger than NBA.
This is way bigger than everything I’m doing.