(Minghui.org) A 71-year-old woman in Jiaozhou City, Shandong Province has been detained for more than 40 days for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

A group of officers knocked on Ms. Du Shifen’s door on the afternoon of September 9, 2019. Although Ms. Du wasn’t home at that time, the police waited outside her apartment building and arrested her as soon as she returned. She has been held at Pudong Detention Center since then.

This was the second time that Ms. Du was arrested for her faith. She was rejected admission to the detention center due to failing the physical exam after her earlier arrest on November 14, 2016.

Ms. Du, a retired employee of a petroleum company, took up Falun Gong in 1996. Her hepatitis and cataracts soon disappeared. Now in her 70s, she is still in good health and energetic enough to take care of her ailing husband and twin grandchildren.

Her family is calling for her release.