By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 23: Noted NBA basketball player Enes Kanter Freedom, who was recently nominated for Nobel Peace prize, will be honoured with the prestigious international UN Watch courage award for his activism against Chinese persecution of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and other persecuted people. He will receive the award on 6th April and will address UN ambassadors, human rights activists and journalists at the 14th annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.
The Executive Director at the UN Watch, Hillel Neuer said that Freedom has been chosen for his “heroic efforts to sound the alarm on China’s brutal human rights abuses.” A cross-regional coalition of 25 human rights organizations including Liberal International, Human Rights Foundation, nominated Kanter and said that his activism has affected his career and lead to his games being pulled in China with whom NBA shares a huge lucrative business deal.
“I want to say thank you to the Geneva Summit for Human Rights for its support and for shining a global spotlight on human rights abuse in China. I hope this encourages other athletes to stand up for what is right,” the 29-year-old athlete said. He noted that the Chinese regime is a “brutal dictatorship”.
The player of Turkish descent was recently traded to Houston Rockets by Boston Celtics only to be waived by his new team. Many experts say the NBA is punishing the young player for angering China in the past few months. Freedom would be joining Alexey Navalny, jailed Russian opposition leader (2021), jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, former Tibetan political prisoner Dhondup Wangchen (2019), as other recipients of this award.
The annual conference will be held close to the 2022 opening session of the UN Human Rights Council, which includes China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela as members. The NBA player has also been targeted for calling out President Erdogan for rights abuses in Turkey, and also barely escaped officers that Turkish government sent after him in Indonesia in 2017. The former Boston Celtics center legally changed his name to Enes Kanter Freedom when he became a US citizen last year.
Congratulations Enes Kanter for being nominated to receive award. You deserve all awards that are based upon humanitarian issues and to end brutality regimes in the world.