For many basketball fans in the United States is Enes Kanter a role model. For Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he is an enemy of the state. “I could be kidnapped by Turkish agents, at any time, or killed,” wrote the Turkish NBA Pro, recently in the “Washington Post”. A trip with his Team, the New York Knicks, according to London-he said, as a precaution. Because Kanter is a self-confessed followers of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, which is made by Erdogan for the coup attempt of 2016 is responsible. Therefore, the 26-year-old is afraid of the “long Arm” of Erdogan, as he puts it – and he apparently has every reason to be.
The Istanbul public Prosecutor’s office requested recently through the international police authority Interpol, the arrest and extradition of the basketball player. He is accused because of his reverence for the Pennsylvania living Gülen membership in a terrorist organization. In addition, the Star, deserves to be in New York, according to media reports, around 19 million dollars per season, the Gülen movement supported financially.
Kanter is proud of Gülen to his close connection to, and is in his criticism of the Turkish President very clearly. On the day of the Turkish coup trial, the 15. July 2016, visited Kanter his spiritual “master,” in Pennsylvania, what makes it from the point of view of the Turkey only right to be suspicious. Gülen was given the Coup plotters so shocked as all the other Turks also said Kanter later; the Gulen movement rejects the allegation, the 77-year-old preacher and longtime political ally of Erdogan was caught in the attempted coup of the threads.
Kanter is a self-confessed follower of preacher Gülen
For Kanter Gülen is more than just a spiritual support: The movement of the preacher is his family, since his parents have broken out in Turkey by him. Shortly after the coup attempt made it possible father Mehmet apologized to the Turkish Nation for his son, who had been hypnotized by Gülen””.
made it possible reaction to Gülen was a confession: “May God take every second of my life, and my brave teacher pay,” he wrote on Twitter. Erdogan he called a “dictator”.
Very deliberately, the NBA player puts his fame, for Gülen, and against the Turkish government. So he complained recently in an interview with the Online platform “EUobserver” the EU’s Silence in the face of human rights violations in Turkey.
In the “Washington Post” referred to Kanter as the target of state persecution in Turkey: “Erdogan wants to have me in Turkey, where he can Silence me.” In an Interview with the Reuters news Agency, Kanter claimed, US President, Donald Trump should be concerned about the reports of abductions, torture and killings in Turkey.
Also, the former football star Hakan Sükür now lives in the USA
Not since the request to Interpol, the Turkish authorities are the Star on the heels. In the past year, Kanter has been set during a visit to Romania at the initiative of Turkey temporarily: Ankara had at the time, his Turkish passport to move in. The athlete was only able to return thanks to the Intervention of the NBA and the American Ministry of foreign Affairs of Bucharest, made in the USA. “Erdogan is chasing everyone who is against him,” wrote Kanter now in the “Washington Post”.
in fact, the Turkish has been taken by the secret service, at least 80 alleged Gulen supporters in 18 different countries and in Turkey. Prominent Gülenist as Kanter are particularly targeted by the Turkish investigators.
the formerly undisputed Superstar of Turkish football, Hakan Sükür, who lives in the US, because in Turkey, the prison threatens. Sükür was a legendary centre-forward of the Turkish national team and the top club Galatasaray Istanbul and sat to the end of his career, even as a member of the Erdogan AKP party in the Turkish Parliament. However, at the time, Gülen and the AKP worked together. After the collapse of the Alliance in December 2013, the air was Sükür as for Kanter closely.
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NBA Pro, Enes Kanter receives every day hundreds of death threats
The former football-God Sükür today operates a small Café in Palo Alto, California. Like Kanter, he will be able to for the foreseeable future, not in the Turkey return.
