Baku, August 2, AZERTAC

The Turkish Information and Communication Technologies Authority (TKM) on Friday said it blocked access to Instagram, according to Anadolu Agency.

No reason was given for the move, but it came after the country's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun criticized the social media platform, saying it "is actively preventing people from posting messages of condolences for the passing of Hamas leader [Ismail] Haniyeh without citing any policy violations."

"This is censorship, pure and simple," he said in a post on X on Wednesday after Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran.

"We will defend freedom of speech against these platforms that have showed many times that they are primarily in the service of global exploitative system of injustice," he added.