Sometimes professional sports have a juicy soap opera
storyline that doesn’t involve a Twitter argument, though there are Twitter
posts involved here, and this one has gone pretty far to even hit on the international
level.
NBA player Enes Kanter, who is from Turkey, was detained in
a Romanian airport last week after Turkey invalidated his passport. Kanter has
made it known that he is not a fan of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan and while detained Kanter made a video that he posted on Twitter where
he compares the Turkish President with Adolf Hitler which you figure didn’t go
over well.
In response, the Turkish government has issued an arrest warrant
for Kanter claiming that he is being sought as a member of a terror group. The
government has even applied for an Interpol red notice, which if approved will
mean that Enes Kanter is seen as a terrorist and will be arrested on sight by
any supporting nations which means the US could arrest him and he can be extradited
back to Turkey.
Even though this is an obvious attempt by a repressive government
attempting to silence an outspoken citizen it should be taken as a grave issue.
This could go extremely badly for Kanter if the red notice is approved and it
doesn’t help that he did turn to Twitter with a negative response saying “You cannot catch me. Hahaha. Don’t waste
your energy. I am already going to come to spit on all of your ugly,
hate-filled faces.”
Now isn’t this a better storyline than anything LaVar Ball
spouts out to any news outlet that will listen to him?
