Turkey Blocks Instagram After ‘Censorship’ Row
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Turkey has blocked access to Instagram, the national communications authority said, after a top government official slammed the social media platform for “censoring” Hamas-related content.
The communications authority BTK announced the block on Friday, without giving an explanation for the decision or stating the duration of the ban.
The move follows comments on Wednesday by the Turkish presidency’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, criticizing the Meta-owned platform for what he called its decision to block condolence posts on the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
“This is censorship, pure and simple,” Altun wrote on X, noting that Instagram had not cited any policy violations for its decision to block the content.
“We will continue to defend freedom of expression against these platforms, which have repeatedly shown that they serve the global system of exploitation and injustice,” Altun said, Al Jazeera reported.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his bodyguard were killed in Tehran on Wednesday. Hamas and Iran blamed Israel, which has not commented on the attack.
According to Turkish media, there are more than 50 million users signed up to Instagram in Turkey, of a population of 85 million.
Many users in the country took to the X platform on Friday to complain about being unable to refresh their Instagram feed.
