Former Boston Celtics big man Enes Freedom is in serious danger and needs some help, as the Turkish government put a $500,000 bounty on his head and he’s now receiving hundreds of death threats a day, putting his life in serious danger.

Freedom became an American citizen when he was still playing for the Celtics in 2021. He was born in Switzerland and grew up in Turkey, where he saw firsthand how terrible and unfair the Turkish government is.

This has been an ongoing battle between both sides for years now, resulting in warrants issued for his arrest and charged with being a member of a terrorist organization for his outspoken and brutally honest comments on the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Due to Freedom being so outspoken about the social injustices in Turkey, the government decided to arrest his father in 2013 and didn’t release him until 2020, holding him for seven years, turned out to be a false imprisonment on a false claim that the Kanter family are terrorists because Erdogan doesn’t like Freedom.

In 2017, Turkey revoked Freedom’s passport, along with making false claims of Freedom and his family being members of a terrorist group. This impacted his career as he couldn’t fly to Canada to play the Toronto Raptors.

It turns out that Freedom is safest on American soil, which he learned when he was still in the NBA by not making his passport being revoked a bigger issue than it was.

Although Freedom was critical of the NBA and their relationship with China, he needs some protection from somewhere, despite his claims of being “blackballed” by the league.

I truly hope Enes Freedom remains safe while in America. No person should have to live with fear and check over their shoulders everyday to survive.

It’s a shame how his career ended, as he just wasn’t serviceable anymore, but every player wants to go out on their own terms and he didn’t get to do that.

I really hope Freedom and his family (who are still in Turkey) are all going to be ok.

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