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US-China relations
China

Chinese rights: Ex-NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom and wife of jailed activist Cheng Yuan speak on US ‘corporate complicity’

  • Chair of Congressional-Executive Commission on China says NBA, Milwaukee Tools and Nike will be asked to testify at a future hearing
  • Freedom says NBA teams have blacklisted him for being outspoken about Beijing’s treatment of Tibetans and Uygurs

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Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom speaks at a Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Photo: via YouTube
Bochen Hanin Washington

The National Basketball Association will be invited to testify in front of members of the US Congress for playing a role in enabling human rights violations in China, Representative Chris Smith said at a hearing he chaired on Tuesday.

Smith, a Republican of New Jersey, spoke at a hearing titled “Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations” hosted by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), a bipartisan panel that advises lawmakers and the executive branch on human rights and the rule of law in China.

One of the five witnesses on Tuesday was Enes Kanter Freedom, a former NBA player who claims he has been blacklisted after 11 years because of his outspokenness about the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibetans and Uygurs. The NBA has rejected this characterisation.

Freedom, an American citizen born in Switzerland to Turkish parents, said he was criticised by Boston Celtics representatives and the NBA players union in 2021 for wearing shoes that read “Free Tibet” and “Free Uygur” during games.

Ahead of his debut of the “Free Tibet” shoes, Freedom, who then played for the Celtics, posted a video calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator”. The same week, Tencent, which has exclusive streaming rights for NBA games in China, stopped streaming Celtics games.
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