Being one of the most outspoken individuals in the league, New York Knicks stud Enes Kanter has had his fair share of backlash through the years. So much so, that his recent involvement in political issues stemming from his former home country of Turkey (Kanter recently had his citizenship revoked) has led to a slew of death threats.
Speaking to Diamond Leung of The Athletic, Kanter described the nature of these threats and how he handles them.
“Just mostly about death threats,” he said nonchalantly. “'I’ll do this to you.' … I mean, I don’t want to say I don’t take them seriously because they’re death threats. You never know. But my thing is just, I play in the NBA, so I have a lot of security around me. I have a lot of people around me all the time. And I just worry about the people who don’t have the security, who don’t have people around them and are doing the same stuff.”
Kanter was recently a guest speaker in the Oslo Freedom Forum, which was considered by some as a risky move on the part of the athlete-activist. In the past, speakers in the said forum were subjected to assassination attempts.
Nonetheless, this did not affect Kanter's intent to speak his mind.
“No. I mean, if it happens … If I die, I die,” he said. “I cannot control that. But just because I fear of death or I fear of anything, it’s not going to make me stop talking about what I’m talking about. It’s not going to make me stop doing what I’m doing. Because I’m not just doing this for myself. I’m just doing it for all the innocent people — thousands and thousands of people out there in Turkey that are innocent — and I’m trying to be the voice of all these innocent people. So that’s why, no fear.”
Mostly known as a comical troll, this sheds a whole new light on the valiant personality and unwavering beliefs of Kanter. We truly hope that nothing untoward comes out of this.
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