Turkey blocks access to Instagram. It’s in response to removal of posts on Hamas chief, reports say

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Turkey blocks access to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. It’s in response to removal of posts on ****** chief, reports say

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s communications authority blocked access to the social media platform

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on Friday, the latest instance of a clampdown on websites in the country.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority, which regulates the internet, announced the decision early Friday but did not provide a reason.

Yeni Safak newspaper, which is close to the government, and other media said access was blocked in response to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

removing posts by Turkish users that expressed condolences over the ******** of ****** political leader

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

“Sanctions for

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

’s ********* policy were swift. The Information Technologies and Communication Authority blocked access to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,” Yeni Safak stated in its online edition.

Earlier, Fahrettin Altun, the presidential communications director and aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had strongly criticized the Meta-owned platform for preventing users in Turkey from posting messages of condolences for Haniyeh.

There was no immediate comment from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, which has over 50 million users in Turkey, a nation with a population of 85 million.

Unlike its Western allies, Turkey does not consider ****** to be a ******* organization. A

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, Erdogan has described the group as “liberation fighters.”

The country is observing a day of mourning for Haniyeh on Friday, during which flags are being flown at half-staff.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a member of Turkey’s main opposition party, denounced the decision to block

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, accusing the communications authority of acting like a “censorship unit.”

“Social media is a platform that everyone uses for many purposes, including for commerce and communicating,” Imamoglu wrote on X. “It is unacceptable that a platform used by the entire country is arbitrarily shut down one morning.”

Turkey has a track record of censoring social media and websites. Hundreds of thousands of domains have been blocked since 2022, according to the Freedom of Expression Association, a non-profit organization regrouping lawyers and human rights activists. The video-sharing platform

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

was blocked from 2007 to 2010.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Turkey #blocks #access #

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#response #removal #posts #****** #chief #reports

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up