Mehmet Kanter, father of Oklahoma City Thunder forward Enes Kanter, was arrested in Turkey Thursday, according to Yenni Hanle, a Turkish news website.
Enes Kanter’s father arrested after Turkish government raids his home
Kanter says his father was arrested for his outspoken comments about the Turkish president. Enes Kanter’s manager confirmed the news.
Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Kanter confirmed the news on Twitter. The Kanter household in Istanbul was raided before the arrest, according to Hilmi Çinar, Enes Kanter’s representative.
Mehmet Kanter was arrested at his home in Turkey and could be sent to Tekirdag, according to Yenni Hanle. The Turkish government gave no explanation behind his arrest, but Çinar said he expects an announcement sometime next week.
“Right now, I’m good. I’m safe,” Kanter said in a phone conference with reporters Friday evening. “Of course, when I woke up this morning, I was devastated by the news. It was definitely a crazy morning for me, and my manager talked to my brother, the one in America. He asked him, what’s going on? And my brother told me that the people police came to our house in Istanbul and they raided the house. They took some forms away. They took some computers and everything to search. And they look all over the house. An then, end of the search, they took my dad away, and right now, I think he is arrested.”
Mehmet Kanter, a retired professor of medicine, was one of 13 suspects taken into custody as part of an investigation into the Hizmet, a group the Turkish government believes was responsible for a failed coup two years ago. The Kanter family, including Enes, are members of the Hizmet, which the Thunder forward described in a statement on his website as a “transnational social initiative that advocates for the ideals of human rights, equal opportunity, democracy, non-violence, and the empathetic acceptance of religious and cultural diversity.”
Mehmet Kanter’s arrest comes on the heels of his son’s public disapproval of the Turkish president.
Enes Kanter called president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “the Hitler of our Century” after he was detained at a Romanian airport in mid-May, and later had his passport revoked for public criticism of the Turkish president. The 25-year-old Thunder big man has been outspoken in his support of Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkish officials believe organized an attempted coup against the president.
That purported allegiance to an enemy of the state earned Enes Kanter a warrant for his arrest. The government labeled the Oklahoma City forward as a member of a “terror group,” according to AFP, a French news outlet.
Erdogan visited the White House in May in an attempt to mend the relationship between the United States and Turkey. During the visit, his security detail violently kicked and stomped several peaceful protesters.
In the face of adversity, Kanter will not relent. Çinar believes his father’s arrest will push the star forward to continue to speak out against the injustices in Turkey.
“I believe he will continue just being the voice of the voiceless and the voice of concern about their atrocities,” Çinar told SB Nation. “I don’t think that this will be motivation for Enes to stop doing things.
“What he’s been doing is not wrong at all. And what he will continue doing is not wrong at all.”
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