Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom criticized President Biden’s handling of the U.S. relationship with dictators in China and Turkey and accused the president of being “very soft” on the Chinese Communist Party in an interview with National Review.

“President Biden, we keep talking about the most powerful man in the world, the most powerful house in the world, but when it comes to dictators like Erdogan . . . they are just silent. They are not saying what they’re supposed to say,” he said.

Freedom said it is “a shame” how Biden has handled the U.S. relationship with Turkey, including congratulating Erdogan for winning Turkey’s presidential election last month and supporting a deal that would see Turkey secure $20 billion worth of F-16s from the U.S.

The Biden administration has said it supports the sale, while Congress has objected to the deal.

Freedom warns Biden is playing a “dangerous game.”

“I understand [Erdogan] is a NATO ally but he is torturing people and you are literally helping him,” he said.

“So I just hope that our administration can stand strong against not only Erdogan, but some of the other dictatorships out there too, because at the end, we are America, and we’re supposed to represent democracy, not only in our country, but around the world,” Freedom said.

Freedom adopted the moniker in 2021 to mark the occasion of becoming a U.S. citizen. He has spoken out against human-rights abuses around the world, to his own personal detriment.

He’s on Turkey’s most-wanted-terrorist list for his comments about the government’s human-rights abuses. In January, he said Erdogan’s government had put a bounty on his head, offering up to 10 million Turkish lira, or about $500,000, for information leading to his capture.

Freedom is a longtime critic of Erdogan, calling him a “dictator” and the “Hitler of our century.” Freedom expressed support for the coup attempt against Erdogan in 2016 and was later banned from the country as a result.

Freedom, who became an American citizen in 2021, said he is in touch with the FBI every week to ensure his safety. He said the FBI told him he is safe in America, but they cannot 100 percent ensure his safety if he leaves the country.

“It’s a very difficult life,” he said. “Unfortunately people are scared to say anything because they are afraid of what everyone could do.”

Because Turkish authorities had an Interpol red notice issued against him, he can only go to 29 countries in the world lest he face deportation back to Turkey. He said he has had twelve warrants out for his arrest in the last decade.

But, he said, “there are millions of people who are suffering in Turkey, so someone has to speak up.”

Freedom gained notoriety for his protests against Erdogan’s regime and the CCP during his time in the NBA, when he played for the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks.

He called out China for its treatment of Tibet in 2021, which led Chinese video-streaming site Tencent to pull the Celtics’ season opener. He later wore custom shoes adorned with the phrases “Modern Day Slavery” and “No More Excuses” during a game against the Charlotte Hornets to draw attention to Nike’s Chinese supply chain. He has also worn shoes that read “No Beijing 2022” and “Free Tibet.”

Freedom was ultimately traded to the Houston Rockets, but the team later dropped him.

In March, NBA commissioner Adam Silver dismissed Freedom’s claims that he was being blackballed from the league.

“We spoke directly about his activities this season, and I made it absolutely clear to him that it was completely within his right to speak out on issues that he was passionate about,” Silver told the New York Times.

But Freedom remains unconvinced.

The relationship with China is a “huge, huge deal for the NBA,” he said. Before Covid, all the league’s all-stars would visit China at the season’s end before even taking a vacation or visiting with their own family.

“If someone says anything, [they are] going to do whatever they can to silence it,” he said.

“It’s very heartbreaking how the biggest dictatorship in the world can fire an American citizen in a 100 percent U.S. company,” he said.

But NBC Sports noted Freedom was “not nearly as effective” at his biggest strength, interior scoring, during the season when he was released. “The rebuilding Rockets had little basketball reason to use a roster spot on someone who appears to be past his peak,” the outlet noted in March 2022.

Freedom said he still plans to file a lawsuit against the NBA “when the time is right” and that he is having conversations with his lawyers about it.

He accused companies and organizations that pulled out of Russia when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine of hypocrisy, suggesting those groups would not do the same with China.

“God forbid . . . if China attacks Taiwan, I wonder if the same companies, same CEOs, same organization, will [speak about] and support Taiwan,” he said. “I don’t think so, because they know that . . . they’re not going to be [making] any profit from Russia but they are going to make a lot of profit from China. And China uses that.”

He said someone had to speak out because the CCP’s influence stretches far beyond the NBA — “Hollywood, Wall Street, academia, Big Tech . . . and so many of these companies, organizations, CEOs, people are in China’s pocket.”

He called out Twitter CEO Elon Musk for his own willingness to bend to the will of a dictator, after Twitter announced it would restrict access to some content in Turkey ahead of the May 14 election because of legal requests from Erdogan’s government.

When journalist Matt Yglesias tweeted that the “Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied,” Musk defended the site’s decision.”Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias?” Musk said. “The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”

“Everyone was shocked,” Freedom said of Musk’s decision. “I thought that when Elon took over everything was going to change, everything was going to be good and free speech will be amplified everywhere in the world.”

“I just cannot believe it,” Freedom said of Musk’s defense. “Because there’s going to be so much blood on Elon’s hands because of what he did because Erdogan is a dictator . . . so for someone like Elon to help a dictator — and this dictator actually puts innocent people in jail, tortures them and stuff — there is definitely going to be blood on his hands.”

He was similarly perplexed by the World Health Organization’s decision to allow North Korea to join its executive board. He called it “unbelievable” and said he doesn’t know what people are thinking sometimes.

“I don’t understand how they .. think,” he said.

“When I heard about that news, I thought it’s the Onion that’s making some kind of a joke,” he said. “And then I clicked on it and started to read it. And I was like, no, this is not the Onion news. This is actually real, legit news. I have no words.”

He also decried the use of TikTok in the U.S., saying it should “absolutely” be banned.

“Look at . . . China,” he said. “Is Twitter allowed? Is YouTube allowed? Is any of the West ever allowed? So why would we allow their No. 1 app, which we knew that they are [using to manipulate] our youth. Why are we allowing it in our country?”

The platform has claimed it does not ban or shadowban anyone for speaking out against the CCP, a claim that Freedom calls a lie. He got a second phone, downloaded TikTok, and began posting videos that were critical of the CCP in an effort to call the app’s bluff.

“They literally banned me a couple days later,” he said.

TikTok banned the account on March 11 and reinstated it twelve days later while TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was on Capitol Hill to testify at a congressional hearing.

Freedom’s account was banned after his videos allegedly broke the app’s “community guidelines.” He appealed the ban ahead of the hearing but was told the account would not be restored.

A TikTok spokesperson told the Washington Post that the ban was a mistake made by the company’s U.S.-based moderators and claimed the platform does not remove content at the request of the CCP.

As for what’s next for Freedom, he said he’s still mulling a potential run for Congress, though he is concerned his message will be diluted if he gets into politics.

“Once you get into politics, you’re going to lose 50 percent of the people,” he said, because of how hyperpartisan the country has become. “I’m waiting for the right time, but it’s a very difficult road to take. Like I said, I want everyone to care about human rights, so that’s why I’m trying to be very careful.”