ਵਿਤਕਰੇ ਵਿਰੁੱਧ ਨੀਤੀ

A magazine serving Punjabi communities owes them two commitments at once: that its pages will not be a vehicle for hatred, and that fear of controversy will not silence the truth. This policy makes both. “We” means Northview Productions Inc., doing business as Kalam Di Goonj.

1. Commitments in what we publish

Across everything we publish, including reporting, opinion, literature, translation, and archive, we commit to:

• Dignity. Every person, of every faith, caste, origin, gender, sexuality, age, and ability, is written about as a human being. Criticism may be severe; it may not be dehumanizing.
• No dehumanization. We do not publish content that likens peoples to vermin, disease, or filth; that calls for their exclusion, subjugation, or violence against them; or that presents a community’s existence as a threat in itself.
• No stereotyping as humour. Satire matters to us, and Punjabi letters have a long satirical tradition aimed at power, hypocrisy, and folly. A joke whose entire mechanism is a degrading stereotype of a protected group is not satire, and we do not publish it.
• Care with wounds. We cover communal violence, caste, Partition, and 1984, and we cover them with context, accuracy, and awareness that words about old wounds reach living people.

2. Commitments to people

• Contributors and staff are entitled to harassment-free dealings with us and through us. We do not tolerate harassment or discriminatory abuse of our writers, translators, narrators, sources, or staff, by anyone, including each other and including us. Concerns go to the Editor-in-Chief, or to the Director where the concern involves the Editor-in-Chief.
• Community spaces. When comments and other interactive spaces open, the Community Guidelines apply this policy there: hate, harassment, and dehumanizing content are removed, with a defined enforcement sequence and appeals.

3. The legal floor

Two bodies of law set the minimum, and we observe both:

• BC’s Human Rights Code, s. 7 prohibits publishing material likely to expose a person or group to hatred or contempt on the basis of protected characteristics, including race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital or family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and age.
• The Criminal Code, ss. 318 to 319 makes advocating genocide and the public incitement or wilful promotion of hatred against identifiable groups criminal offences, subject to defences protecting, among other things, truth, good-faith religious opinion, and public-interest discussion.

Canadian courts have set the constitutional threshold for hatred at detestation and vilification: content portraying a group as subhuman, inherently dangerous, or worthy of contempt, such that discrimination against them appears justified. Offence, ridicule of ideas, and hurt feelings fall below that line. The law reaches the extreme, not the impolite.

4. Our house standard sits above the floor

We hold ourselves to more than the legal minimum. Content can fall short of the Whatcott threshold and remain lawful while still being dehumanizing, degrading, or corrosive in a way this magazine will not host. Slurs used as slurs, degradation presented as banter, and sustained othering of a community are declined or removed as a house rule, without waiting for the law to be engaged. The law states what we must not publish; our standards state what we will not.

5. What this policy does not restrict

A policy against hatred that suppressed honest speech would fail the readers it claims to protect. This policy does not restrict, and we will defend:

• accurate reporting on discrimination and violence, including naming perpetrators, describing atrocities, and quoting hateful statements where reporting requires it, with context;
• historical documentation, including the Partition of 1947, the violence of 1984, colonial history, caste oppression, and communal conflict, told truthfully with sources and context;
• criticism of governments, institutions, and ideas. States, parties, armies, police, clergy, corporations, ideologies, and policies enjoy no protection from criticism here, however severe;
• religious and cultural debate, including argument that a doctrine, practice, or tradition is wrong, and including argument from within those traditions;
• satire directed at power, ideas, institutions, and public conduct.

Publishing a perspective is not endorsing it. Published views are the author’s or speaker’s own, and publication does not imply endorsement by the Company or the Publication.

6. How we assess

When material is challenged, before or after publication, our editors assess it under our internal procedure against four questions drawn from the law and our standards:

1. Who or what is the target? A community defined by who they are, or ideas, institutions, and actions? Vilifying a people fails this test; attacking an idea, however forcefully, does not.
2. What are the intent and context? Reporting hatred, documenting history, and quoting for criticism differ fundamentally from promoting hatred. Genre matters: reportage, scholarship, fiction, satire, and polemic are read as what they are.
3. What is the likely effect? Would a reasonable reader see the material as exposing a group to detestation and vilification, the Whatcott threshold, or as information, argument, or art?
4. Does our house standard require more? Lawful material is still declined where it dehumanizes. See section 4.

Close calls escalate to the Editor-in-Chief, with legal advice where the legal line is genuinely engaged.

7. Enforcement and complaints

• Before publication: submissions and commissions that fail this policy are declined or revised in discussion with the contributor.
• After publication: where we conclude that published material breaches this policy, we act under the Corrections Policy, by annotation, correction, or, in serious cases, retraction or removal, visibly rather than silently.
• In community spaces: the enforcement sequence in our Community Guidelines applies, from editing and removal through warnings, suspension, and bans, with appeals.
• Complaints: if you believe we have published hate content, stereotyped a community, or failed these commitments, complain through our Complaints, Appeals & Right of Reply process by writing to [email protected]. We acknowledge within five business days and answer with reasons. Appeals go to the Editor-in-Chief and then to the Director.

8. Limits of this page

• It is not a promise that you will never read anything offensive here. Truthful history and open debate offend someone almost by definition, and lawful offence is not hate.
• It does not make us the arbiter of the community’s arguments. It governs what we publish and host, not what anyone may think or say elsewhere.
• It does not determine legal questions. Whether material crosses the Human Rights Code or Criminal Code threshold is ultimately for tribunals and courts. Our assessments are editorial judgements made in good faith.