The list of words that the Daily Alfazl cannot use. Editors replace the words with dots, leaving readers to figure out what was redacted from the original text.
It is only at mid-afternoon that most bleary-eyed sub-editors start thinking about heading to their respective newsrooms. But for the 15-member editorial team at the Daily Alfazl, that’s usually when the paper is being sent to the press.
It is far from a conventional broadsheet. The Jamaat Ahmadiyya’sDaily Alfazl newspaper started off as a weekly in 1913. Almost a century later, the paper is still in circulation, despite the bans, threats and legal issues that followed the introduction of Ahmadi-specific laws.
At the newspaper’s office in Rabwah, in Chiniot District, the impact of those laws is tangible.
While proofers at other publications look for factual and grammatical errors, staffers at the Daily Alfazl have a different set of tasks. In 1984, a sign was placed in the proofers’ room, featuring a list of words the Daily Alfazl cannot use in line with the ‘Anti-Islamic Activities of the Qadiani Group, Lahori Group and Ahmadis (Prohibition and Punishment) Ordinance’, which was promulgated that year. Intriguingly, editors replace the words they cannot use with dots, leaving readers to figure out what was redacted from the original text. The prohibited words include ‘Muslim’, ‘Azaan’ and ‘Tabligh’.
At one point, according to editor Abdul Sami Khan, there were over a hundred lawsuits against the paper’s printer and publisher. And even though the Daily Alfazl is only circulated within the Ahmadiyya community, ‘objections’ have been raised by people incensed at the mere sight of its masthead. It has been banned several times, and its printing press was sealed for a year in 1953, during riots against the Ahmadi community. Shipments of the paper are often delayed at the post office.
This isn’t the only publication people have been ‘offended’ by. “People have had issues with the children’s magazine as well,” says Khan. According to the Ahmadi watchdog website, http://www.thepersecution.org, cases have been instituted against five monthly magazines and the newspaper itself, as well as books published by the community. TheDaily Alfazl also receives no government advertisements, a key source of revenue for most publications.
“We used to get advertisements before 1974 [the year amendments declaring Ahmadis non-Muslims were introduced in the constitution],” says Khan. “Not anymore.” Instead, the newspaper runs ads from local advertisers or large businesses run by members of the community.
The slim newspaper — which publishes 9,000 copies daily — is primarily a journal for the community, featuring sermons and local news. A weekly edition is published in the UK.
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam
How cruel law which this government keeping still while ppp saying that their party is very libral and obey the human rights and basic rights of mankind.
Their whole capacity, capability and qualification lies in these bans. They do not know that truth can never be hidden or stopped by this kind of useless strategies.They are living in fools paradise.
When someone does not have evidence this type of strategies occur. Innalillahi waa inaa Ilaihi rajioon.