Former NBA Player Enes Kanter Freedom Says He Lost $50 Million in Earnings After Speaking Out Against CCP

Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter Freedom, looks towards his team’s bench during the first half of an NBA basketball game, in Boston, on Dec. 1, 2021. Charles Krupa/AP Photo

Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom has claimed to have lost roughly $50 million in salaries and possible endorsements after his career ended abruptly when he spoke out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The basketball player made the claims in a hearing on July 11 before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), which is chaired by both Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Tuesday’s hearing, titled “Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations,” centered on the alleged human rights abuses taking place in China, including genocide, forced organ harvesting, forced labor, internet censorship, and mass surveillance.

It also focused on how international businesses and corporations that seek to operate in China or maintain access to the Chinese market often find themselves at risk of being complicit in such human rights abuses.

“According to my manager, I lost around $50 million dollars, with all the NBA contracts and endorsement deals that I could’ve signed,” the sportsman said.

“I sleep in peace at night knowing that I did the right thing. My only question is: How can the biggest dictatorship in the world, China, control an 100 percent American-made company and fire an American citizen?” he added.

China’s ‘Brutal Dictator’

During Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Kanter told lawmakers that he has, over the past 11 years, often spoken out about the human rights violations in his home country of Turkey, where he said there were “many innocent people being prosecuted” by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime, including his own relatives.

He later moved into activism toward China following a “simple basketball camp” in New York, during which he was asked by the parent of one child why he had not spoken out about the CCP’s alleged abuses against members of the Uyghur and other Muslim minority groups.

A 2022 report published by the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) found a number of “serious human rights violations” may have been committed against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, China. The United States has also accused the CCP of genocide. China has repeatedly dismissed the claims as a smear campaign.

Enes Kanter Freedom, human rights advocate and former NBA basketball player, testifies before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China at a hearing about "Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations" in Washington on July 11, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Mr. Kanter told lawmakers that after being questioned by the parent, he began researching the CCP’s alleged human rights abuses against members of the Uyghur group and others, at one point speaking to a concentration camp survivor who detailed her experience of torture, gang rape, forced sterilization, and abortion methods in such camps.

“At that moment, I said to myself, I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to help these people,” he said.

Mr. Kanter, the former Boston Celtics center, went on to hit the headlines for speaking out against human rights abuses in China, at one point going so far as to call the nation’s leader Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator,” leading to Celtics games being pulled from Chinese media.

He also called for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in protest of human rights abuses in the country.

‘Brutal’ End to Career

China and multiple Chinese brands are major sponsors of the NBA.

Additionally, Mr. Kanter has also spoken up on behalf of the Tibetan people, on one occasion wearing shoes emblazoned with the words “Free Tibet” at an NBA game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden in 2021. The CCP took control of Tibet in 1951.

Mr. Kanter was later sidelined by the league, ending his career early.

The former NBA player told lawmakers Tuesday: “I’m a basketball player. My job is to go out there, and compete with my teammates and try to win an NBA championship. I ask people when they call me a retired NBA player not to because I refuse to accept that my career ended the way it did.”

“My entire life I worked so hard to achieve my NBA dream, and I made it. However, because I wanted to stand up for what is right, my career ended in a very brutal way,” he said.

Mr. Kanter became a U.S. citizen in 2021. He has been banned from returning to his home country by Erdogan’s administration because of his political views. The administration revoked his passport in 2017.

Despite this, Mr. Kanter vowed to continue speaking out about human rights abuses in nations such as China.

“Freedom is not free, and it’s going to come with some consequences,” he told lawmakers. “But someone had to stand up for the innocent around the world, no matter how much money or business I have lost because of it.”