Celtics Games Pulled In China After Enes Kanter’s Message For ‘Brutal Dictator Of China’
The Boston Celtics opened their 2021-2022 regular season at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks Wednesday night.
It was a thrilling game, with Marcus Smart of the Celtics forcing overtime with a three-pointer as time expired in regulation before the Knicks outlasted the Celtics 138-134 in double overtime.
It could also be the last Celtics game available in China for some time.
On Wednesday, Boston center Enes Kanter posted a video to his Twitter account, calling on the Chinese government to “Free Tibet.”
“My message to the Chinese government is free Tibet,” Kanter wrote. “Tibet belongs to Tibetans. I am here to add my voice and speak out against what is happening in Tibet under the Chinese government’s brutal rule, Tibetans people’s basic rights and freedoms are non existent.”
“I say, shame on the Chinese government,” Kanter continued. “The Chinese dictatorship is erasing Tibetan identity and culture. The cultural genocide is so genocide, that more than 150 Tibetan people have burned themselves alive, hoping that such a horrific act of sacrafive will raise awareness and attention towards the ongoing abuses within Tibet.”
“Brutal dictator of China, Xi Jinping, I have a message for you and your henchmen,” he said in the video. “Free Tibet, free Tibet, free Tibet.”
Dear Brutal Dictator XI JINPING and the Chinese Government
Tibet belongs to the Tibetan people!#FreeTibet pic.twitter.com/To4qWMXK56
— Enes Kanter (@EnesKanter) October 20, 2021
China seized control of Tibet in 1951.
The reaction in communist China was swift, with Chinese streaming service Tencent — which has partnered with the NBA — cutting the live feed of the Celtics vs Knicks game. On Thursday, future Celtics games were marked as unavailable to be live-streamed, according to The New York Times.
In 2019, the NBA ran afoul of the Chinese government when Daryl Morey — then the general manager of the Houston Rockets — voiced his support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Morey’s message instantly ignited outrage from China’s communist government, which moved to end its relationship with the Rockets. The NBA quickly went into damage control mode, saying that the “views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable.”
LeBron James weighed in, criticizing Morey for not being “educated on the situation.”
“I don’t want to get into a … feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand and he spoke,” James said. “So
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