NBA Star Enes Kanter Freedom: 'What I'm Doing Is Bigger Than Basketball' 
The Boston Celtics center is known for his activism on and off the court and is a critic of the government of his native Turkey and the Chinese Communist Party
A: I remember my first time coming to America in 2009, I came here to play basketball and go to school at the same time. I remember we were in the locker room and one of my teammates criticized the president of America. And I was very scared for him because I thought that he was going to be thrown in jail. I even asked him ... ‘Hey, you know ... aren't you scared?’ He turned around and laughed and said, ‘This is not Turkey.’ And he tried to explain to me a little bit about what freedom of speech means. I was still very shocked and amazed at the same time, and I researched, and I found out that not every country in the world is like Turkey. And that's why I wanted to make that word part of me and carry it everywhere I go. I also want all the young kids out there, NBA fans, sports fans out there, to just research about what freedom means and (that's) why I chose that last name. A: I really wanted to go, and I wanted to go see. But I told him, ‘I don't want propaganda. I don't want a luxury tour of China. I want to see the real China and show the whole world what's going on over there.’ I said that if I'm coming to China, let's go visit (Uyghur) labor camps in Xinjiang, let's go visit Tibet together. Let's go visit Hong Kong. And after that, we can fly to Taiwan and see what democracy means. And obviously, after I , I was very shocked that he (Yao Ming) blocked me on Instagram. and said, ‘That's what the little kids do.’ I think what I will say to Yao Ming is: ‘Stop being a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party. Stop being a mouthpiece of Communist Party and Xi Jinping, if you want to have a real conversation, you know where I live. Just come here and we can have a conversation.’ A: Well, I'm actually kind of used to this. You know in Turkey, they ban my Twitter account, they censor all my basketball games in the whole country, and they censor my name because they're scared. They know that I'm exposing them. And now when I saw that the Chinese government is doing the same thing, it actually gave me extra motivation because I know whatever I'm doing is right. Whatever I'm doing is really scaring them. A: I remember the first time I put my 'Free Tibet' shoes on my feet. There were two gentlemen from the NBA and they came to me on the bench right before the game, and told me that 'We are begging you take those shoes off.' And I asked, 'Am I breaking any rules?' They said no. Then I told them, 'Go tell your boss, whoever it is, (NBA Commissioner) Adam Silver, the Celtics owner, and whoever you're talking to, I'm not taking my shoes off. I don't care if I get banned or if I get fined.' And they said OK. That game was right before my citizenship test, and I was getting ready for it. There are 27 amendments, and my First Amendment (right) is freedom of speech. I didn't want them to take that away from me. A: It could get overwhelming, yes. But at the end of the day knowing that you're doing this for innocent people will always give you extra hope and motivation. Everyone thinks I'm a basketball player. Yes, I am a basketball player, but I think what I'm doing is bigger than basketball. I want to make this very clear: I don't do politics. Some people say that: stay away from politics, focus on basketball. But there's a big difference between politics and human rights. I never said vote for this guy, don't vote for this guy. I always say we need to free political prisoners, we need to have human rights, we need to have freedom of speech, we need to bring awareness to countries like Taiwan or Ukraine. So I feel like this is bigger than basketball.