Turkey blocks access to Instagram amid censorship allegations

Ankara, Aug 2 : Turkey has blocked access to Instagram, the Turkish Regulatory Authority for Digital Information and Communications (BTK) announced on Friday without specifying the reason or duration of the ban.

The move follows allegations levelled by BTK Head Fahrettin Altun, who accused the social media platform of preventing Turkish citizens from posting messages of condolences on the passing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

"I strongly condemn the social media platform Instagram which is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences on the passing of Hamas leader Haniyeh without citing any policy violations. This is censorship, pure and simple," Altun said in a post on X.

He went on to label this act by the Meta-owned social media platform as "censorship, pure and simple".

The high-ranking Turkish official added: "We will defend freedom of speech against these platforms that have shown many times that they are primarily in the service of a global exploitative system of injustice."

The issue came to light on Friday when several users in Turkey took to their X handles to complain about being unable to refresh their feed on Instagram.

There has been no immediate response from Meta, Instagram's parent company, regarding the issue or Altun's statement.

Hamas leader Haniyeh was also considered close to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He was killed, along with his bodyguard, in Tehran on Wednesday while he was in the Iranian capital to attend President Masoud Pezeshkian's swearing-in ceremony.

Hamas and Iran, along with many other countries, have accused Israel of the attack, however, the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is yet to make an official statement on it.

sk/as