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MURDER OF 12-YEAR-OLD CHRISTIAN CHILD WORKER ADVOCATE STIRS PROBE

Updated: April 25, 1995 05:00 PM GMT
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The murder of a 12-year-old Christian on Easter Sunday has triggered a demand from human rights advocates for the arrest of "the real culprits rather than trying to fix the blame on scapegoats."

Iqbal Masih, who won international attention after speaking against bonded child carpetworkers, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on the evening of April 16. Two young relatives riding with him were wounded in the attack.

The three youths were on their way to their village near Muridke, some 350 kilometers southeast of Islamabad, to celebrate Easter. "Masih," meaning "messiah" in Urdu, identifies a Pakistani male as a Christian.

The Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) observed April 21 throughout the country as a protest day against Iqbal´s murder. BLLF chairperson Eshanullah Khan said its flag flew at half mast at its primary schools nationwide.

The body was buried in a BLLF flag, another one being unfurled at the grave.

Khan alleged that Muridke police, in a bid to save the real culprit who he alleged was a local landlord who ran a carpet factory in the town from which Iqbal had escaped, booked the landlord´s servants for the murder.

According to Khan, the gun used belonged to the landlord, from whose factory Iqbal escaped two years ago. The boy then entered the 3rd form at the BLLF school, where he was in the 5th form when he was gunned down.

The BLLF leader also demanded that the government implement the 1992 Bonded Labour (abolition) Act and provisions of the Pakistan Constitution prohibiting child labor in any form.

After escaping from the factory, Iqbal won international recognition as a leader of children he wanted to free from bonded labor. Last Dec. 7 he became the youngest child to win the Reebok Human Rights Award for Youth in Action.

In the award ceremony in Boston, the United States, he received US$10,000. Brandeis University offered him a course of study at Broad Meadows Middle School in Boston upon completion of his basic schooling in Lahore.

The Reebok Human Rights Program approved a scholarship for his further education in the United States, where he hoped to study law.

While visiting Broad Meadows School, he spoke to a group of 60 students who, after hearing of his ordeal, said they would launch a letter campaign to United States President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

They told Iqbal they would also write American congressmen to help end child and bonded labor in Pakistan and boycott imports to the United States of carpets woven by children.

In The Patriot Ledger, a Boston newspaper, reporter Carol Gerwin quoted the boy from Pakistan telling schoolchildren that he worked from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week without rest. If his work slackened, he was punished with sticks and iron fists, causing a permanent scar above his left eyebrow.

He said factory punishments included thrusting fingers into burning oil and hanging children upside down. When his parents complained to factory managers about their son being tortured, they were also beaten, he said.

On many occasions, his parents were manhandled in the presence of police who protected the factory owner, according to the newspaper reports.

Before receiving the Reebok award, Iqbal appeared in a documentary on Pakistan´s carpet industry by Swedish film-maker Magnes Bemara.

National Consultative Committee on Women convener Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan said April 18 that she was contacting human rights organizations to adopt a united course of action on the killing of the boy.

She also demanded that the Pakistan government implement laws banning child and forced labor.

Indian child rights advocates have spoken out on the issue.

END

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