In March 2012, shortly after Xu Guang was promoted to secretary of the municipal party committee, Zhoukou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government issued "Document No.1" and "Implementation Opinions on Further Promoting Funeral Reform".
The document requires that it will take three years to complete the full coverage of rural public welfare cemeteries; The cremation rate is 100%; Thoroughly curb illegal burial and mass burial and secondary coffin loading of ashes; No new graves will appear, and the old graves will be gradually abolished.
According to the People’s Daily, due to the huge number of graves that were relocated, some people called Zhoukou’s funeral reform "Pingfen" and questioned and heckled it.
Xu Guang, then secretary of Zhoukou Municipal Party Committee, responded:
In view of the sensitivity of this work, Zhoukou was very cautious from the beginning, and organized many major leaders and representatives of the masses in counties and cities to study and inspect in advanced areas of funeral reform such as Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Zhejiang. Many mass symposiums and expert hearings were held to fully solicit opinions from all walks of life.
But it is still controversial.
According to the disclosure of China Youth Daily, on November 16th of that year, the Chinese government website published Order No.628 of the State Council, requesting to amend Article 20 of the Regulations on Funeral Management as follows: "If the remains that should be cremated are buried in the soil, or the remains are buried or graves are built in other places other than cemeteries and rural public welfare cemeteries, the civil affairs department shall order them to make corrections within a time limit", and the part of "refusing to make corrections can be enforced" was deleted.
Later, a propaganda cadre in Zhoukou City, Henan Province, told the Beijing News that since November 16th, the State Council has revised some provisions of the Regulations on Funeral Management, and the implementation of "flat grave rehabilitation" in this city has been suspended.
Subordinate being investigated