Enes Freedom on China, the NBA, and Human Rights

A big man, a big heart, and a warrior for speaking out when no one else will

NBA player and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom in Washington on Dec. 18, 2022. (Jack Wang/The Epoch Times)

“They’re pretty much trying to invade America from the inside,” Enes Kanter Freedom says of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “Because they know they’re not strong enough to invade America from the outside. By buying these people and organizations, they’re trying to destroy America from the inside. People are letting them because they’re bowing down to money and power.”

In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek spoke with the former NBA player, whose 11-season career abruptly ended when he made headlines for speaking out about human rights abuses in China. Here, Freedom reveals what made him the man he is today, and what gave him the courage to stand up to major multinational corporations and the CCP.

Jan Jekielek: Let’s talk about how we got here, because not too long ago, you were getting some great numbers in the NBA.

Enes Kanter Freedom: Soccer was number one in my homeland, Turkey, and I wanted to be a soccer player, but because of my height and size, my teammates were always making me a goalie. So I decided to switch sports.

I was 14 when I started playing basketball. Five years later, I became an NBA player. My family wanted me to come to America to play basketball and get my education. I went to high school here. I went to college, and I’ve played 11 beautiful years in the NBA.

Mr. Jekielek: You’ve been vocal about issues you see around the world, but it started with Turkey.

Mr. Freedom: Until my second year in the NBA, I only cared about basketball and having fun with my teammates. And then in 2013, my third year in the league, there was a big corruption scandal in Turkey. President Erdogan and some of his family were involved. He started putting innocent people in jail—journalists, prosecutors, judges, and people who own media outlets.

So I put out a tweet. Because of the NBA platform, it became a conversation in the United States, Turkey, and some other countries. I was amazed that one simple tweet could affect so much.

I thought, from now on, I’m going to educate myself. So while my teammates were going out and having fun, I was studying things happening between America and Turkey and in the Middle East. The more I studied, the more I realized I needed to talk about these issues.

I ended up writing an op-ed to one of the world’s biggest newspapers. I started to give interviews and meet with some people. And all this affected my family. My dad, a scientist, got fired from his job. My sister went to medical school for six years and still can’t find a job. My little brother, 12 years old, wanted to be like me, play in the NBA and represent his country and family, doing something he loved. But he was getting kicked off every team because of the same last name. My family was affected so much that they had to put out a statement saying, “We are disowning Enes publicly.”

Mr. Jekielek: It seems clear why you were thinking about the reality in Turkey, but what turned you on to the reality in China?

Mr. Freedom: I was doing a basketball camp when this kid said to me, “How can you call yourself a human rights activist when your Muslim brothers and sisters are getting tortured and raped every day in concentration camps in China?” I was shocked. He called me out in front of everybody. The media was there, a lot of my friends, the kids, parents, everybody. I said, “I promise to get back to you,” and that day, I started to study. The more I studied, the more I was ashamed of myself.

From one topic, you jump into another. Once you focus on Uyghurs, another link pops up, and you click on what’s happening in Tibet. Then Hong Kong, Taiwan, Falun Gong, and Mongolians.

What I didn’t see was a celebrity. Athletes, singers, rappers, and actors all talk about Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and North Korea, but when it comes to China, they’re silent. I was like, “Okay. I guess that’s my job now.”

Mr. Jekielek: Why do you think there’s this deafening silence around the CCP?

Mr. Freedom: Here’s an example from my story. The Celtics were playing the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on national TV. The whole country was watching. It was the perfect moment, and I put my shoes on. My topic on those shoes was “Free Tibet.”

A minute before the game, two gentlemen working for the NBA said to me, “You got to take your shoes off.” And I was confused. Two years before, players were putting things on their shoes like “Black Lives Matter” and “I can’t breathe.” So I asked them, “Why?”

They said, “Your shoes are getting a lot of attention internationally. We’ve been getting a lot of pressure.” It was from China, but they didn’t say it was from China. I told them, “I’m not taking my shoes off, even if I get fined.” And they said, “We’re not talking about fines. We’re talking about getting banned.” I didn’t take them off, and in the first half of that game, I played zero minutes.

Back in the locker room, there was a notification on my phone from my manager, “Every Celtics game is banned in China.” That shows the dictatorship and the censorship and how scared they were. In that game, I played zero minutes, but I had played in every game before that.

Then the Players Association was calling me and saying, “You can’t wear those shoes ever again, because we’re getting pressure from the NBA.” Finally, I promised never to wear Free Tibet shoes again. The next game, I wore the Free Uyghurs shoes, and they called me, saying, “You lied to us.”

I told them, “I never lied to you. I never said, ‘I’m not going to wear Free Uyghurs shoes.’” At that moment, they understood they weren’t going to be able to handle me.

After the Tibet game, one of my teammates said, “If you say anything against China, you’re never going to play again in this league.”

Mr. Jekielek: It’s unbelievable to me the soft power that the Chinese regime exercises, even with such an iconic organization in America.

Mr. Freedom: That was the thing that was driving me crazy. The biggest dictatorship in the world can 100 percent control an American organization and put pressure on them to fire an American citizen. But the NBA is not the only one. You see the same thing in Hollywood and Big Tech, in academia, on Wall Street, and in Congress.

They’re pretty much trying to invade America from the inside, because they know they’re not strong enough to invade America from the outside. By buying these people and organizations, they’re trying to destroy America from the inside. People are letting them because they’re bowing down to money and power. And the more I researched, the more I saw America is not the only one.

Muslim leaders around the world speak out on issues involving Islam or Muslims. But when it comes to Muslims in China, the Uyghurs, they’re silent. They’re scared of China and what China could do to them.

Think about this. All these companies, organizations, athletes, and actors are standing up for Ukraine. All my Boston Celtics coaches went to a game with a Ukraine pin on their chests. But if China ever attacks Taiwan, would they wear a Taiwanese flag on their chests? Zero percent chance. That’s the hypocrisy. That’s what kills me inside, because they really don’t care.

Mr. Jekielek: What’s your message for people in general, those kids at the basketball camp, or the audience watching right now?

Mr. Freedom: We have one world. This is our home. So we‘ve got to make this world better together. I also say, “Listen, America’s not perfect, no country is perfect. But we are blessed and lucky to be in a country like this.” So be a good person. Educate yourself. Read. Reading is important. People are so focused on games and smartphones and apps that they’re not seeing what’s happening in the real world.

Mr. Jekielek: You changed your name to Freedom. Tell me, what does freedom mean to you?

Mr. Freedom: When I first came to America, my teammates and I were in the locker room after practice. One of them had posted a criticism on Facebook about the president of the United States. I said, “You might be in jail tomorrow.” They all laughed and one of them said, “This isn’t Turkey, this is America.” Then they told me about the freedom of speech and religion here. It was like they were talking a different language.

So later, I legally took that name, Freedom, and put it on my jersey. Every arena I went to, kids around the world watching that game saw the word Freedom. Now, every time I walk on the street, people see me and yell, “Freedom.” And that is so beautiful.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.