{"id":142967,"date":"2018-06-18T21:36:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T21:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/turkey-issues-warrant-for-nba-player-enes-kanters-father\/"},"modified":"2018-06-18T21:36:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T21:36:20","slug":"turkey-issues-warrant-for-nba-player-enes-kanters-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/turkey-issues-warrant-for-nba-player-enes-kanters-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey issues warrant for NBA player Enes Kanter&#8217;s father"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"New York Knicks center Enes Kanter at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA on 26 March 2018\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/10805\/production\/_102098576_d2543e0f-91c0-4c9b-b8cd-d13a2e920143.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Reuters<figcaption>Image caption                                      Enes Kanter has criticised the Erdogan government in Turkey                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The Turkish government has issued an arrest warrant for the father of an NBA basketball player from Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish prosecutors say the father of Enes Kanter, a New York Knicks player, had been in touch with members of a banned organisation.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey seeks to imprison Mehmet Kanter, a university professor, for 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>NBA star Kanter has criticised the Erdogan government, which imposed a state of emergency after a failed military coup in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>It claimed Mehmet Kanter had contacted 127 suspected members of the Gulenist groups FETO and PDY, 57 of whom used a secret smartphone app, ByLock, to communicate.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey claims the app is used by followers of the exiled religious leader, Fethullah Gulen, - known as Gulenists. Gulen is regarded by his followers as Turkey&#039;s second most powerful man.<\/p>\n<p>The Gulenist movement runs schools throughout Turkey and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>But in May 2016, the Turkish government formally declared it a terrorist organisation and accuses it of being behind the failed coup.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Who are the Gulenists?<\/li>\n<li>Reality Check: The numbers behind the crackdown in Turkey<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a statement released on social media, Kanter defended his father and said he would &quot;keep fighting for human rights, freedom of speech, justice and democracy.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Playing basketball is what I love to do, I may be equally known [these days] for being a critic of the Turkish government and its president,&quot; he said in a video on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>                           Skip Twitter post  by @Enes_Kanter                              <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I will continue to keep fighting for Human Rights and Freedom of Speech<br \/>Justice and Democracy above all.I will stand for what I believe in.All I\u2019m doing is trying to be voice of innocent people <br \/>Keep my family,innocent people in your prayers \ud83d\ude4f#DictatorErdogan \ud83c\uddf9\ud83c\uddf7@RT_Erdogan pic.twitter.com\/i7kK3mwKND<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Enes Kanter (@Enes_Kanter) June 18, 2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>              Report                          <\/p>\n<p>End of Twitter post  by @Enes_Kanter<\/p>\n<p>Kanter cut ties with his family in August 2016, after his father publicly disowned him in the Turkish press over his then support for Mr Erdogan.<\/p>\n<p>Kanter still does not speak with his father, or any other family member, for fear that it may endanger them.<\/p>\n<p>In May 2017, Enes Kanter was prevented from travelling at a Romanian airport, after Turkey cancelled his passport.<\/p>\n<p>In response to the cancellation of his passport, Kanter said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was &quot;a bad, bad man&quot;, and a &quot;dictator&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Since the failed coup, suspected Gulenist supporters have been purged from jobs in Turkey. Many have been arrested.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p06bg987.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionWho&#039;s been affected by Turkey&#039;s state of emergency?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Turkey is holding presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 June.<\/p>\n<p>There will be a second-round run-off for the presidency on 8 July if no candidate wins more than half the vote in the first round.<\/p>\n<h2>You may also be interested in:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>&#039;Safe space&#039; for LGBT World Cup fans shut<\/li>\n<li>Ronaldo&#039;s superhuman match in pictures<\/li>\n<li>US to set up new military &#039;space force&#039;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright ReutersImage caption Enes Kanter has criticised the Erdogan government in Turkey The Turkish government has issued an arrest warrant for the father of an NBA basketball player from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}