Kanter:
Kids Basketball Camp Scrubbed After Turkey Threatened Long Island Mosque
by John Rossomando
IPT News
July 26, 2019
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
 An NBA player's free
basketball clinic for kids was abruptly canceled this week, and the player
is blaming the government of Turkey.
Boston Celtics player Enes Kanter, a Muslim and citizen of Turkey, said
the Turkish Consulate in New York used "bully tactics" to
pressure the Islamic Center of Long Island (ICLI) into canceling the event.
The move punishes "300+ New Yorker kids," Kanter wrote Wednesday night. "... This is how the
#Turkish Dictator operates."
Kanter, a former New York Knick, is a critic of Turkey's President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. And he supports Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled cleric
living in Pennsylvania who once was an Erdogan ally. Now, Erdogan calls
Gulen's organization a terrorist group and blames
Gulen for a failed 2016 coup attempt. Erdogan has repeatedly asked the United States to extradite Gulen.
Earlier this year, Kanter refused
to travel to London to participate in a game between the Knicks and the
Washington Wizards because he feared that he could be abducted or killed by
Turkish agents.
The mosque announced that the cancellation was due to "unforseen
circumstances," which Kanter blasted.
"You let a #TurkishDictator and @TRConsulNY
run your mosque," he wrote. "Muslims should understand we have
freedom and do not need to bow to dictators I will make a free camp for the
kids elsewhere[.] We tell kids to stand up to bullies,but you allow Turkish
Government to bully you[.]"
Mosque representatives said the cancellation followed threats by the
Turkish Consulate who came to the ICLI, said Kanter's manager, Hank Fetic.
The mosque received more than 90 calls from unknown people in Turkey
telling it to cancel the event.
The threats included a ban on mosque members traveling through Turkey,
which is a popular destination for many Muslims and is a common flight
connection to South Asia, where many mosque members have family.
"I'm truly sad about how this happened. I wish when the Mosque got
these threats that they reported it to the police or the FBI — instead they
punished the kids. It shows how strong Erdogan is, he can bully even
Americans and get away with it," Kanter told the Investigative Project
on Terrorism (IPT).
It's at least the second time this year that one of Kanter's kids' camps
was scrapped at the last minute. A Dallas mosque canceled
a camp in June due to "Erdogan regime's pressure," Kanter wrote on Twitter.
"... This is so bizarre! Stop politics in sports. I'm sorry
kids."
The camps are open to children of all faiths.
The ICLI said that Kanter's camp had merely been "postponed."
But Kanter told the mosque he would not reschedule, Fetic said. The ICLI
declined to comment.
Turkey's New York Consulate has engaged in other aggressive activity
against perceived foes in the United States.
It spied on suspected Gülenists in 2017, documents obtained by the IPT
from the Turkish prosecutor's office in Istanbul show.
The monitoring was used to prosecute relatives of those targeted who live
in Turkey.
Umut Acar, consul general at Turkey's Chicago Consulate, has repeatedly
trolled Kanter on Twitter. Acar taunted
Kanter on Tuesday, mocking a video in which Gülen is shown asking for a cup
of tea. After taking a sip, he passes it to Kanter.
"Why should this all bother everyday Americans?" Acar wrote.
"Because this cult runs the largest charter school network in the U.S.
And Kanter, sacred leftover tea guy, travels from state to state, meets
senator after congressman to present himself as a role model to the
American youth."
Meanwhile, Turkish-government run TRT World published a video package Wednesday – the same day
Kanter learned his free camp for kids was canceled – slamming his Gülen
ties. The video accused Kanter of using his NBA star power to fuel
"anti-Turkish sentiment" in the United States
Erdogan "can bully even Americans and get away with it,"
Kanter said, pointing to a 2017 incident in which Erdogan's guards beat up protesters in Washington, D.C. during the
Turkish leader's visit.
Kanter enjoys a significant public profile as an NBA player. That makes
him a threat that the Erdogan regime seems determined to shut down.
Research Analyst Teri Blumenfeld contributed to this report.
|
Print
Send
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment