Turkey looking to jail Enes Kanter for insulting president

by
Wendell Cruz / USA TODAY Sports

Turkish prosecutors are attempting to hand New York Knicks center Enes Kanter a minimum four-year prison sentence for tweets he made in May and June 2016 insulting Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to The Associated Press.

Kanter has long been a vocal critic of Erdogan on social media and has publicly supported longstanding rival Fethullah Gulen, a 76-year-old Turkish cleric who self-exiled himself to the United States, and who Erdogan blamed for a failed military coup in Turkey in July 2016.

Kanter's support for Gulen has seen the Knicks player have his Turkish passport revoked, leading to him being stranded in a Romanian airport earlier this year. His father was also arrested by the country's government in June for what Kanter described as "my outspoken criticism of the ruling party."

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