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Social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have been blocked in Turkey, following a Turkish court ruling over the sharing of hostage photos during an armed siege in the country last week.
Two gunmen from a far-left group had taken a prosecutor hostage at Istanbul central courthouse in the siege.
Ibrahim Kalin, Turkey’s presidential spokesman, said a prosecutor sought the ban on social media after the release of the photos.
He said: “This has to do with the publishing of the prosecutor’s picture. What happened in the aftermath (of the prosecutor’s killing) is as grim as the incident itself,”
“The demand from the prosecutor’s office is that this image not be used anywhere in electronic platforms.”
Before the court imposed the blockade on these social media windows, Turkish authorities had moved to stop newspapers from printing images taken during the siege last week. The newspapers were accused by the government of disseminating “terrorist propaganda” for the DHKP-C group that was reportedly behind the attack on the courthouse.
A total of 166 websites that shared the images were blocked by the court order.