NATION/WORLD
Thursday, April 20, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
11A
Child labor activist slain in Pakistan
The Associated Press
MURIDKE, Pakistan — In the dirt-poor farming village where Iqbal Masih was shot, the death of the young activist was shrouded in mystery and confusion yesterday.
A human rights group claimed the 12-year-old was targeted by powerful people in the carpet industry who had been angered by his cruisade against child labor, a campaign that had won him acclaim in Europe and the United States.
But some villagers said the youth merely stumbled upon a deranged farm worker high on opium, who cut him down Sunday night with a blast from a double-barrel shotgun.
While police and human rights groups sifted through contradictory reports, Iqbal's mother, Anayat Masih, sat in her small adobe hut and mourned her son with a chilling rhythmic wail.
"Where can I find you now? You're gone, my Iqbal," she cried, her head buried in her hands. Back and forth she rocked, inconsolable.
According to several people in this eastern village, Iqbal and two relatives were riding the same bike by moonlight Sunday night on a deserted road.
They had traveled about 31/2 miles already, passing some of the industries that employed child workers leather tinteries, a tortille mill.
- leather tanneries, a textile mill, a
steel mill and a lead recycling shed.
The trio stopped to visit relatives at a farmhouse before heading out on the last leg of their journey.
With Iqbal on the handlebars, they came across a laborer named Mohammed Ashraf and an altercation ensued, according to a statement made to police by Faryad Masih, Iqbal's cousin who was pedaling the bike.
Ashraf raised a double-barrel shotgun and fired at Iqbal, according to the police report. The youth was hit in the head, the chest, the abdomen and the legs.
His cousin, Faryad, was hit in the arm while the third youth on the bike, Liaqat Masih, was not hurt.
Village police have issued a warrant for Ashraf's arrest and were holding his brother, who has not been implicated, until Ashraf turned himself in.
However, the Bonded Labor Liberation Front, a private group that fights forced child labor, was suspicious of the police report.
It said after Iqbal began speaking out against the evils of child labor, carpet makers had become worried that rights groups or the government would take action against them. As a result, Iqbal received numerous death threats.
"Many times Iqbal pointed out that his life was in danger," said Khan, who heads the Bonded Liberation Front. "I don't trust the police to investigate properly."
Both his group and the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan were looking into the case themselves.
"The circumstances are not yet clear," said I.A. Rehman of the Human Rights Commission.
Iqbal addressed a labor conference in Sweden last fall and in December received the $15,000 Reebok Youth In Action Award in Boston. He said he planned to use the money to go to law school.
He had come a long way from the tiny Christian colony of Muridke, with its adobe huts, dusty, unpaved lanes and a canal where naked children and water buffalo vie for space.
In his speeches, Iqbal said his parents sold him to a carpet factory owner when he was four, and he spent the next six years shackled to a loom before contacting the Front and escaping.
His parents had divorced, but Iqbal had returned to his village and made peace with his mother. She proudly showed off pictures of her son Wednesday, photos taken in Sweden with his foreign friends.
"Iused to ask Iqbal to take me with him, and he said one day he would." Ms. Masih said. "He was such a good boy. Everyone loved him."
T-shirt debate results in student lawsuit
The Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Seven students suspended for wearing Confederate flag shirts have sued a school district, claiming they should be allowed to sport the rebel flag if others can wear Malcolm X shirts.
At least 15 students have been punished for wearing the shirts at Blackville Middle School, according to the class-action lawsuit filed Monday.
The plaintiffs contend the Barn-
well County District 19 dress code, which prohibits "distasteful or disruptive" symbols on clothes, has been unfairly applied in violation of their free-speech rights.
white students."
The suit claims that students were suspended for wearing shirts with the rebel flag saying "Flying high, ain't coming down," while black students have been permitted to wear symbols of African-American pride, including Malcolm X t-shirts, that "may be offensive to
"This suit is not about race. This suit is about freedom," said the students' lawyer, Louie A. Sallev III.
Salley is seeking to rescind the dress code, remove the one- and three-day suspensions from the students' records and unspecified damages.
South Carolina is the only state that still flies the battle flag above its Statehouse, though Mississippi and Georgia incorporated the design into their state flags.
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