Brave Turkish daily Taraf felled by offstage government axe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/06/turkey-outspoken-daily-newspaper-hit

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The final figure is as melancholy as expected: 132 journalists killed in the line of duty in 2012, according to the International Press Institute, with Syria and Somalia top of the murder league. The 70 editors and reporters still behind bars in Turkey make it still leader of the incarceration championship. But there is another bitter blow to lament on the road from Ankara to Istanbul.

For five years of feisty existence, a Turkish daily called <em>Taraf </em>(circulation just over 50,000) has told truth to power with brave élan. Its owner, a bookshop entrepreneur, cheered its editors on as they broke stories other papers wouldn't touch. He even picked up the bill when Turkey's prime minister sued for libel (and won) after Taraf called him "arrogant, uninformed and uninterested".

But now the grinding of government axes offstage appears to have claimed another victim: the editor and his deputy have resigned. No one knows what will survive. Freedom doesn't necessarily die with a bullet or a bomb. It can be surreptitiously squeezed away until what's left barely matters any longer. No remaining power, no truth.