Former NBA player and human rights activist Enes Kanter Freedom told Newsmax Friday that he advised his former NBA colleague Dwight Howard not to apologize to China after Howard called Taiwan a "free country" in a promotional video made for the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"I did hear about his apology and his comments, and I did see the commercial, which they were saying that Taiwan is a free country, which it is," Freedom said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record with Greta Van Susteren." "As soon as I heard his apology, I actually texted Dwight Howard because me and him going against each other on a basketball court the last 11 years now, and he's a friend.
"I reached out to him and I was like, 'Stand strong, brother. Do not apologize [to] the biggest dictatorship in the world.' I don't want to go into much detail [about] what he said, but I hope that he is going to stand strong."
Howard, who has been playing in the Taiwanese professional basketball league since November, was slammed on Chinese social media for calling Taiwan a country in the ad spot. He then apologized for offending anyone in China, saying he was "misinterpreted" and "does not want to get into politics."
Freedom, who has long spoken out about China's history of human rights abuses, said that Taiwan is an independent country, regardless of what China maintains.
"China can get mad as much as they want, but Taiwan is a free country and they will be free no matter what, and we will stand with Taiwan," he said, wearing a T-shirt that read "Taiwan is not China."
The son of two Turkish parents, Freedom has also been outspoken about Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling him "the Hitler of our century," for human rights abuses.
For speaking out, Freedom has had his Turkish citizenship revoked, been placed on the country's terrorist list, and had a bounty placed on his head. With elections in Turkey upcoming on Sunday, Freedom said that "People are saying enough is enough. We are sick of his policies.
"Turkey plays a very important role in Middle East and Europe because Turkey could have been a bridge of Islam and West," he said. "But just because of Erdogan's policies is impossible. There is no rule of law. There is no democracy. There is no freedom. Turkey is the number one country in the world [that] will put most journalists in jail under Erdogan's regime, so something has to change."
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