NBA star Enes Kanter made news last week when he spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party for their repression of the people of Tibet. “My message to the Chinese government is Free Tibet. Tibet belongs to Tibetans,” said Kanter on Twitter, wearing a shirt with the image of the Dalai Lama. “I’m here to add my voice and speak out about what is happening in Tibet. Under the Chinese government’s brutal rule, Tibetan people’s basic rights and freedoms are nonexistent.”
Kanter also called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator” and repeated “Free Tibet” three times in the video. “More than 150 Tibetan people have burned themselves alive!! — hoping that such an act would raise more awareness about Tibet. I stand with my Tibetan brothers and sisters, and I support their calls for Freedom. Dear Brutal Dictator XI JINPING and the Chinese Government Tibet belongs to the Tibetan people!”
Kanter, who was born in Turkey, spoke out against the Turkish government and their repression in 2018. And while his freedom of expression is both welcomed and applauded in the United States, the Turkish government was not please in 2018, revoking his Turkish passport.
And the Chinese government immediately stopped televising all Boston Celtics games in their country, as a result of Kanter’s comments. Kanter also posted photos of sneakers designed by Badiucao, a Chinese dissident, which has Free Tibet painted the side.
The business of doing business in China has raised some issues for the NBA. The Chinese people love the NBA, and the country watches the NBA more than anyone other than the USA. In 2019, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, made comments supporting the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
That resulted in another Chinese Communist Party temper tantrum, with ALL NBA games suspended for a few days. And the CCP still hasn’t forgiven Morey, who now works for the Philadelphia 76ers, and there games are now banned from Chinese TV.
Many NBA superstars, like LeBron James, have backed off speaking out against China, and Cable TV Sports superstation ESPN’s parent company Disney makes billions off the Chinese market, and has been reluctant to get into a public disagreement over Chinese policy regarding Tibet, or the Uyghurs, the Muslim minority in China currently being persecuted and thrown into detainment workcamps, or the orgins of COVID-19.
The other problem that China and the CCP have is the growing movement to the United States to Boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijine, because of the human rights mistreatment of the Uyghurs, and political protestors in Hong Kong, and its policy towards Tibet and Taiwan.
ESPN did run a story on the recent protest of the handover of the Olympic torch in Greece.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/32428612/activists-call-boycott-2022-beijing-winter-olympics-say-ioc-legitimizing-rights-abuses-china
