Enes Kanter speaks truth to power

Kanter, in a tweet Friday afternoon, said Jinping, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is condoning a “genocide” that includes “torture, rape, forced abortions and sterilizations, family separations, arbitrary detentions, concentration camps, political reeducation, forced labor.”Show more

“The Chinese government has been taking sweeping measures to crack down on the Uyghur people simply because they embrace their own religion, their own culture, language, history, and identity,” Kanter said.

The Uyghurs, a nomadic Turkic people native to China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, are at odds with the atheistic Chinese Communist Party.

The United States State Department has classified the forcible assimilation of the Uyghurs as a genocide. More than 1 million Uyghurs have reportedly been detained in reeducation camps for periods ranging from weeks to years, and China has drawn international condemnation in the process.

Kanter said everyone must spread the word to call on the Chinese government to free the Uyghur people and remove them from the camps.

“It is so disappointing that the the governments and leaders of Muslim-majority countries are staying silent while my Muslim brothers and sisters are getting killed, raped, and tortured,” he said.

He also encouraged fellow Muslim athletes to speak up and join him and said it’s imperative to do something rather than sit back.

Kanter, who wore “Free Tibet” sneakers when the Celtics faced the Knicks on Wednesday, has adamantly stated that Tibet belongs to the Tibetan people.

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.