Human rights activist and former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom testified before Congress on Tuesday about the persecution he had personally experienced from the Islamist regime in Turkey, warning that strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s stranglehold on power is a threat to NATO.
Turkey, one of NATO’s most formidable armies, became part of that military alliance in 1952, following decades of secularist rule that would last through the end of the millennium. Erdogan first took power as a prime minister in 2003 and since spearheaded major executive reforms to impose a presidential system and then control the office of “president.” Since his rise, Turkey has become an increasingly vocal Islamist power, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the terrorist organization Hamas in the world, and an active international threat to dissidents opposed to Erdogan’s rule.
The Turkish state has persecuted Kanter Freedom’s family and attempted to arrest him abroad after he became vocal in condemning the Erdogan regime. A member of the Hizmet Islamic movement founded by late Erdogan political opponent Fethullah Gülen, Kanter has repeatedly denounced the mass arrests of thousands of Gülen supporters following the failed coup against him in 2016. Erdogan blamed the coup on Gülen, though the cleric lived in Pennsylvania at the time, and Erdogan did not present any public evidence convincingly connecting Hizmet to the uprising.
Kanter Freedom received support for his political statements from the NBA for many years until he chose to publicly condemn the government of China for its ongoing genocide of Turkic people in occupied East Turkistan, many of them Muslim, in 2021. The player estimated during a Congressional hearing in 2023 that he had lost $50 million for speaking out against China, and has not been able to return to NBA play since his condemnation of China.
Kanter Freedom and two other witnesses — persecuted Turkish dissident Alp Aslandogan and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Senior Fellow Michael Rubin — addressed Erdogan’s increasingly violent repression of dissent during a hearing before Congress’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Tuesday, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). The three accused Erdogan of turning Turkey into one of the world’s most prolific transnational repressors and an active threat to free speech around the world.
“Today, we are talking about a Turkey that leads in transnational repression, supports Hamas, evades U.S. sanctions on Iran and Russia, and assists criminal networks with money laundering,” Kanter Freedom narrated. “It is a country where opposition politicians, elected mayors, intellectuals, and journalists are arrested; businesses are seized; and mothers with infants are imprisoned for making charitable donations.”
The former NBA player accused Erdogan of conducting a “deliberate campaign to crush dissent and dismantle civil society,” identifying himself as a “survivor” of that campaign.
“Since I became outspoken, I have personally endured 12 arrest warrants, a revoked passport, and a $500,000 bounty on my head — experiences shared by many Turkish Americans,” he told Congress. “My father was imprisoned. My mother was recently detained. In 2017, I narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt in Indonesia and was nearly arrested in Romania.”
Kanter Freedom concluded his comments by encouraging Washington to limit arms sales and military support to Turkey if it does not improve its deplorable human rights record, as well as to openly condemn repression. As a NATO ally, he argued, Turkey poses a natural security threat if coopted by authoritarian Islamism.
“Turkey is no longer functioning as a democracy in any meaningful sense,” he warned. “A NATO ally that rejects democratic norms is not just a moral failure — it becomes a strategic liability.”
The AEI’s Michael Rubin similarly warned that Erdogan’s Turkey is a dangerous ally to America.
“The willingness of regimes to abuse human rights and restrict religious freedom is perhaps the best canary in the coal mine as to that regime’s true character,” he argued, citing extensive instances of Turkey persecuting ethnic and religious minorities, including Kurds and Christians of Greek and Armenian descent.
“The danger is greater as Erdoğan seeks to cultivate his personal relationship with President Donald Trump to bypass accountability and the consequences of his own terror support,” he continued, “win relief on Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions, and receive the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, among other weaponry.”
“To provide F-35s to a regime that flirts with the Islamic State, shelters Hamas, sides with militant factions in Syria, helps Russia bypass sanctions, and represses Christians, moderate Muslims, and Jews is to pour fuel on a fire,” Rubin warned, “not to extinguish it.”
“Indeed, while Turkey might talk NATO, its animosity toward religious minorities suggests that it is more likely to use U.S.-supplied weaponry to threaten Jews in Israel, Christians in Greece and Armenia, and Hindus in India rather than defend Europe against Russia in time of conflict,” he added.
Aslandogan, like Kanter Freedom and Rubin, told personal stories of being persecuted by the Erdogan regime. He identified himself as a member of Hizmet and noted that Erdogan had launched terrorism probes against over 2 million people since the 2016 failed alleged coup.
“Turkish-Americans affiliated with the Hizmet movement, such as myself, live in forced exile, unable to visit loved ones — even to attend funerals — for fear of reprisals,” he stated. “Family members in Turkey face harassment, detention, and loss of livelihood. Properties and financial assets are frozen.”
“U.S.-based citizens and residents face de-banking and discrimination due to politicized Turkish blacklists. Smear campaigns have spread false terrorism accusations against law-abiding Americans,” Aslandogan continued. “U.S. cooperation with Turkey, including military and security assistance, should be conditioned on measurable improvements in human rights and the release of prisoners of conscience.”
The witnesses also noted the recent crackdowns on secularist supporters of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the major opposition party in the country. Thousands took the streets in March to protest the arrest of CHP Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu on a litany of charges including taking bribes and aiding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a demobilized former terrorist organization. Supporters denounced the charges as fabricated and intended to stunt his run for the presidency; the CHP nominated him as its candidate, anyway.
Should he continue to imprisoned in 2028, Imamoglu would be the second high-profile opposition politician to run for presidency while in prison. The first, Kanter Freedom noted in his testimony, is Selahattin Demirtas of the now-defunct People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Demirtas was arrested in 2016, also on dubious charges of ties to the PKK, and has been in prison since. A Turkish court sentenced him to an extra 42 years in prison last year.
Rep. Smith, chairing the hearing, identified the Erdogan regime as “one of the most aggressive governments in the world, kidnapping or otherwise ‘disappearing’ many of its critics” and lamented America’s response to the persecution as “very weak.” Rep. Smith has authored a bill to address the security of dissidents residing in America, titled the Transnational Repression Policy Act, that he emphasized would impact Turkey’s persecution specifically, in addition to other regimes acting similarly.
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