Occupy Asheville currently maintains an overnight camp in front of City Hall in downtown Asheville.

Occupy Asheville held a funeral at Pritchard Park and a procession with pallbearers carrying a cardboard casket to a candlelight vigil in front of City Hall on the three-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and to mourn what was termed the death of civil liberties on Dec. 17.

About 30 people, braving the breezy, frigid weather, gathered in the park for speeches that touched on the loss of rights, Bradely Manning’s detention and passage of the Defense Authorization Act.

A press advisory noted that OA’s event would be “framed in context of historic and current assaults on constitutional and human rights.”

In addition, the advisory said, the movement “was inspired, in large part, by the sacrifice and determination of ordinary people fighting for democracy in the Arab Spring.

“But the celebration is bitter sweet. For decades, the assault on the constitutional and human rights of different communities in the United States has been persistent and alarmingly all-encompassing. This assault is brought home locally to those participating in Occupy Asheville by the blatant actions of the City of Asheville to shut down Occupy Asheville” during mid-December’s meeting of City Council.

“To honor this aspect of the struggle for democracy and human rights, a funeral for civil liberties will happen prior to the candlelight vigil.”

Members of the community were asked to honor “those freedoms they have seen lost, and communities that have been impacted,” including the following:

• “Deprivation of Native American sovereignty in the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934;

• “Assaults on organized labor like that which occurred during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989;

• “Militarized policing of the largely brown and black urban poor via the U.S. government’s ‘War on Drugs;’

• “Demonization of people of Arab and Middle-Eastern descent following 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act;

• “Criminalization of protest using militarized urban warfare strategies commonly called the ‘Miami Model;’

• “Destructive and terrorizing raids on immigrants and their families by the U.S. Immigrations and Enforcement;

• “Imprisonment and torture of government whistle-blower Bradely Manning;

• “Passage of the Defense Authorization Act allowing for the legal disappearance, imprisonment and torture of anyone — citizen or not — labeled by the United States government as a terrorist; and the

• “Coordinated assault on Occupy by both federal and local governments to end the popular movement that seeks accountability and change to the massive profiteering of corporate/financial interests and corruption of the government for the benefit of the very few.”