Oklahoma City center Enes Kanter and his home country of Turkey are at odds. Well, that’s putting it lightly. In all actuality, it’s pretty serious both for Kanter and for anyone in Turkey who’s critical of the current government.
Last weekend, the Turkish government canceled Kanter’s passport as he was traveling in Romania. After being temporarily detained, Kanter was able to get back to the United States and wants to earn U.S. citizenship and be an American citizen. Kanter explained that he felt his passport was canceled for criticizing the Turkish government.
Now, Turkey wants to arrest Kanter for claiming that he is a member of a terrorist group. Now you can start to understand why Kanter would rather be American.
In addition to the news coming from a state-run newspaper, the supposed terror connection stemmed from praising Fethullah Gulen and his attempts of a coup to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan via Kanter’s social media accounts. Erdogan isn’t keen on people criticizing him and anyone who speaks even remotely ill of Erdogan could be in trouble.
This was also seen in the United States as Erdogan’s bodyguards beat up a group of protestors outside the Turkish embassy protesting Erdogan’s visit of President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. As President, Trump has praised Erdogan in the past and even called to congratulate Erdogan on winning a recent referendum that would change the Turkish government to make the President an executive position and give that person more power in the government as the position of Prime Minister would be eliminated.
Kanter responded to the report on Twitter and it would appear that he isn’t too concerned with bowing down to someone like Erdogan.
Yakalayamazsıııın!!!
Hahaha 😂😂
Boşuna yorulmayın.
Hepinizin o çirkin, nefret dolu suratlarınıza tükürmeye zaten kendim geleceğim. pic.twitter.com/hw0LUp4MNo— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) May 26, 2017
Using Google translate, Kanter is supposed to have said “You can not catch [me]!!! Hahaha. Do not be exhausted. I will come all by myself to spit on your ugly, hateful faces.
[Yahoo]
