The Funeral of Cao Shifang, Dafa Practitioner from Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province

(Clearwisdom.net)

Ever since Cao Shifang was persecuted to death on August 4, 2002, hundreds of people have come to pay their respects. The solemn and respectful setting was surrounded with flowers. A banner on the left reading, "Heaven is shocked with Sadness and Sorrow," best described this event.

The funeral started at 7 a.m. on August 8. More than one hundred people showed up to pay their last respects to the elderly practitioner, Mrs. Cao. Among them were Dafa practitioners, relatives, friends and fellow workers. A few dozen plainclothes policemen watched and followed the proceeding closely. The memorial was held at hall number 4 in a crematory funeral home. Dafa practitioners wearing white flowers were quiet and solemn, filled with respect toward the deceased. The plainclothes policemen gathered around the door of the hall. While paying their last respects to the deceased, four female practitioners started to cry by the corpse. Several powerfully built plainclothes policemen immediately came over and dragged them out, without any explanation whatsoever, totally ignoring the fact that one of them was an elderly lady. Suddenly, somebody shouted at the door: "They are arresting people!" People then caught the scene of Dafa practitioner Yue Xuefeng being forced into a police car with his arms twisted behind his back and his hair pulled by the police. The police in the car trampled on his feet and twisted his hands. An elderly woman was beaten up by a gang of policemen. According to a witness: "I've never seen people being beaten up this way since I was a kid. It is too inhumane." A female practitioner wearing a short-sleeved white shirt was dragged away by two policemen. Some Dafa practitioners were carried away by their arms and thrown into the police cars. The police acted as if crazed. At the end, even Cao's relatives were forced into the cars. It has been confirmed that sixteen Dafa practitioners were kidnapped at the funeral. Video tape of the entire memorial service clearly documents the police forcefully arresting the practitioners. So far, twenty-seven who had come to the funeral have been sought out and kidnapped.

This incident has created a backlash from a large number of Jinzhou City's citizens. People are saying, "Going to a funeral home to arrest people in broad daylight -- that is really unprecedented."

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