We remember Iqbal Masih’s life

By Timothy Ryan

[Tim Ryan of the Solidarity Center is a CLC member, who wrote this piece on  May 3, 1995 for The Christian Science Monitor. Iqbal Masih was murdered on April 16, 1995]

Anyone who knew Iqbal Masih, the 12-year-old boy recently assassinated in Lahore, Pakistan, by someone believed to be a feudal landlord and carpet manufacturer, was struck by his brilliance.

I don’t simply mean his intellectual abilities, though once rescued from slavery at a carpet loom this young activist demonstrated a tremendous aptitude for learning. He went through five years of school curriculum in three. Although malnutrition and abuse left him, at the age of 12, physically smaller and more frail than my nine-year-old daughter, it was clear that his mind, his ambition, and his spirit burned brightly.

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