DRASTIC

NBA Player Says Turkey Canceled His Passport for Erdogan Criticism

Describes Erdogan as “the Hitler of our time” while stranded in Romania.

A Turkish NBA player took to Twitter on Saturday to accuse the Turkish government of canceling his passport for his criticism of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Enes Kanter, a player for Oklahoma City Thunder, said he was “being held by police” in Romania after his passport was annulled. He said he was attempting to board a flight only to be told by Romanian authorities that the Turkish embassy had canceled his passport. In a video accompanying his tweet, Kanter blamed the Turkish president directly for the move. “The reason behind it is just, of course, my political views,” he said, describing Erdogan as a “bad, bad man” and a “dictator.” “He’s the Hitler of our century,” he said. Kanter has been outspoken in his criticism of Erdogan, and he’s a supporter of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who has been accused of orchestrating last year’s military coup. It wasn’t immediately clear why Kanter was being held by police, but he said he’d been in police custody for several hours in unclear circumstances.