Instagram users in Turkey found access to the social media network blocked for a third day on Sunday, following censorship accusations against the US company from a high-ranking Turkish official, Agence France-Presse reported.
The BTK communications authority announced on its website on Friday that the Meta-owned platform had been frozen, without giving any reason.
But Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said on Friday Instagram had ignored government demands for it to remove certain posts.
“Our country has values and sensitivities. Despite our warnings, they did not take care of criminal content,” he said.
“We blocked access. When they abide by our laws, we’ll lift the ban.”
On Wednesday the president’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, had accused Instagram of censorship, saying it was “preventing people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr [Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyeh.”
“This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censorship,” Altun said on X.
Haniyeh, the political leader of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel.
Erdoğan declared a national day of mourning in memory of Haniyeh, who played a key role in talks aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war in Gaza.
An anonymous BTK source denied the move was due to Instagram blocking posts about Haniyeh, telling the Medyascope website that it was due to “insults to Atatürk,” the founding father of modern Turkey, and “crimes.”
The social-democrat and nationalist opposition parties along with Ankara legal professionals petitioned the courts on Friday evening for the freeze to be lifted.
According to Turkish media, 50 million of the country’s 85 million people have an Instagram account.
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, including Facebook, X and Wikipedia.
Erdoğan’s government is regularly accused of muzzling freedom of expression.