NBA’s Enes Kanter calls out Nike’s ‘silence’ on China and alleged forced labour of Uygurs, wears ‘modern day slaves’ shoes
Boston Celtics player Enes Kanter continued his assault on China with his fourth pair of shoes designed by Shanghai-born, Australia-based dissident cartoonist Badiucao.
During his team’s game against the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night in North Carolina, he wore a pair of white trainers adorned with the words “modern day slaves”, Nike Sneakers and once again posted an accompanying video message on his social media accounts.
“Nike remains vocal about injustice [in the US], but when it comes to China, Nike remains silent,” said Kanter, who used the hashtag #EndUyghurForcedLabor.
“You do not address police brutality in China, you do not speak about discrimination against the LGBT community, you do not say a word about the oppression of minorities in China, you are scared to speak up.”Nike is deeply embedded in the Chinese market, which in turn is the NBA’s largest overseas market. In 2015, the US sports apparel company signed a reported US$1 billion dollar deal with the NBA to exclusively produce the league’s jerseys.
“Who makes your shoes in China? Do you even know?” Kanter added. “There are so many forced labour factories in China. For instance Uygur forced labour, it is modern day slavery, and it is happening right now in China. Millions of Uygurs are currently detained, sold and assigned to work in forced labour camps like prisons in factories across the country.”
Nike released a statement this year concerning the allegations.“Nike is committed to ethical and responsible manufacturing and we uphold international Dr Martens Boots labour standards,” the statement read. “We are concerned about reports of forced labour in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region (XUAR). Nike does not source products from the XUAR and we have confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from the region.”
China denies it has committed any human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. According to human rights groups and a United Nations committee, as many as a million Uygur muslims – the region’s largest ethnic group – have been detained in “re-education centres” there, and subjected to indoctrination, torture and forced labour.
It is the fourth time in the past week that Kanter, who did not play in the game, has worn shoes featuring an anti-China message. On Sunday, he wore a pair of shoes with the words “Free China” on them, and his previous shoes included ones that read “Free Tibet” and “Free Uygur”.
Tencent, which holds exclusive streaming rights for NBA games in China, stopped streaming Boston Celtics games online after Kanter originally posted a video message to his social media accounts in which he called Chinese Communist Party president Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator”.
This is the latest in a long line of troubles for the NBA and its teams in China since 2019, when then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted Nike Air Force 1 Shadow his support for Hong Kong’s anti-government protest movement.
The NBA has yet to comment on the shoes or Kanter’s messages, however Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens backed Kanter’s right to free speech.
“My conversation with Enes was real short and sweet, and that is we’re always going to support any of our players and their right to freedom of speech and expression. And I think in my experience with the Celtics and the NBA, that’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it’ll continue to be,” Stevens told The Boston Globe.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has not shown any NBA games so far in the 2021-22 season, which tipped off last week.