Two professors of law who are known for their activism concerning internet freedoms in Turkey have taken a controversial ban on the Instagram social networking platform to court on allegations that it violates the constitution, Turkish Minute reported.
Instagram has been banned in Turkey since August 2, with government officials and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accusing the platform of censorship and failing to remove posts they deem offensive.
Yaman Akdeniz and Kerem Altıparmak, both professors of law and founders of the İstanbul-based Freedom of Expression Association, have petitioned the Ankara 13th Administrative Court, requesting the cancellation of the ban on Instagram imposed by the Turkish Telecommunications Authority (BTK), according to an announcement from Akdeniz on X.
The academics, who are well-known users of social media platforms, said in their petition that Instagram has more than 48 million followers in Turkey and that the ongoing ban violates these people’s right to freedom of expression and right to information, guaranteed in the constitution.
They asked the Ankara court to relay their petition to the Constitutional Court with a request to examine the ban’s compliance with the constitution. In such cases, lower courts can ask the Constitutional Court to determine if a ban contravenes the constitution and keeps the file on hold for six months, when the top court is expected to announce a ruling.
In their petition the professors also talked about another violation of the constitution due to the relevant BTK decision about the Instagram ban not being made public in detail.
The BTK’s website cited Instagram not abiding by directives pertaining to “catalog crimes” as the reason for the ban, without providing further details.
They said this situation violates Article 40 of the Turkish Constitution, which guarantees that everyone whose constitutional rights and freedoms are violated has the right to request prompt access to the competent authorities.
Turkish officials summoned Instagram officials for a meeting on Monday, but their meeting did not result in the removal of the ban on the platform. Turkish media reports said a disagreement between Turkish officials and Instagram representatives about what constitutes “terrorism content” is one of the reasons for the platform ban to remain in place.
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have temporarily blocked access to social media sites, including Facebook, X and Wikipedia.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is regularly accused of muzzling freedom of expression.
As a matter of fact, Turkey, where internet freedom has steadily declined over the past decade, ranks among the “not free” countries concerning online freedoms, according to a report released by the US-based Freedom House in October.
Meanwhile, opposition members of the parliamentary Digital Platforms Committee called for an extraordinary meeting to discuss the ban on Instagram.
Committee members from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the nationalist İYİ (Good) Party and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) petitioned the committee chair for a meeting on Thursday, calling the ban a violation of freedom of expression and the right to information, thus contravening democratic values.
Parliament went to summer recess in late July and is scheduled to return at the beginning of October.
