Enes Kanter may very well be the most popular University of Kentucky basketball player to never play a minute of college basketball.
The #FreeEnes campaign for the NCAA to declare Kanter as eligible, launched by Big Blue Nation in 2011, was a national trending topic on Twitter during almost every Kentucky game that season. If you checked Kanter's Twitter account today, though, you would find that he's fighting a much bigger battle.
In June 2015, the Oklahoma City Thunder center announced that he was being left of the Turkish national basketball team for Eurobasket 2015. Kanter believes it was because of his political beliefs and his support of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, and he was open about being upset over not being on the roster. Ergin Ataman, the national team's head coach, insisted that the decision was not political.
Since a terrorist attack in Turkey's capital city of Ankara in March, Kanter has been publicly critical of the Turkish government, speaking out specifically against the censorship in the media and even on Twitter, his stance has never been a popular one in his home country.
On Friday, as Kanter tweeted (in Turkish) his comments about the coup trying to overthrow the Turkish government on Friday, the response from his countrymen became even more dark. He has been taking screenshots of numerous death threats and posting them onto his Twitter timeline.
3) Ölüm Tehditleri devam ediyor.
— Enes Kanter (@Enes_Kanter) July 19, 2016
Sizden korkan sizin gibi olsun.
Allah hepinizi ıslah eylesin. pic.twitter.com/fcFYw945De
Even though all of them are in Turkish, a simple search on Google Translator or even just looking at the attached pictures can give you an idea of what he is dealing with.
A translation of one of Kanter's recent tweets reads, "Death threats continue to fall. Prayer does not stand still." Many of us claim to stand up for what we believe. We usually do so with memes or bumper stickers. But for Enes Kanter to endure this type of hatred from his own country and to continue to speak his truth...that is what courage looks like.
Home Sweet Home ❤️ pic.twitter.com/oreX7EXDnA
— Enes Kanter (@Enes_Kanter) July 11, 2016