Enes Kanter has used his platform as a NBA player to advocate for human rights.
His latest stance resulted in Boston Celtics games being pulled from the Chinese internet on Thursday.
A day earlier, before the Celtics lost to the New York Knicks in double overtime in their season opener, Kanter posted a video on social media voicing his support for Tibet and called China’s president Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator.”
“My message for the Chinese government is: free Tibet,” Kanter, wearing a shirt featuring the Dalai Lama, said into the camera.
He added: “I’m here to add my voice and speak out about what is happening in Tibet. Under the Chinese government’s brutal rule, the Tibetan people’s basic rights and freedoms are non-existent.”
Kanter went on to call the situation in Tibet “cultural genocide.”
Beijing maintains an iron grip on Tibet, where Xi has escalated a campaign to stamp out the region’s identity and culture through “re-educational patriotism.”
The human rights group Amnesty International says the Chinese government regularly detains Tibetans for engaging in ordinary religious practices, which Chinese authorities deem “signs of extremism.”
