(Minghui.org) A 75-year-old woman from Guiyang City, Guizhou Province has been detained since August 2021, following her arrest for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Du Shilin, who lives on her own, never returned home when she went out one day in early August 2021. Two weeks later, an officer from the Xingguanlu Police Station told her daughter that she had been taken away. When the daughter asked where she was taken to, the police claimed that they didn’t know.

The family spent the next six months trying to find out Ms. Du’s whereabouts, but to no avail. Not until early February 2022 did they receive notification from the police to make a cash deposit for her at the Sanjiang Detention Center. While the police provided no further information about her case, her family suspects that the police were planning to seek a prison sentence against her, given the prolonged detention.

The Minghui.org website confirmed in February 2022 that two elderly women in Guizhou Province, Ms. Yang Xiaohan and Ms. Chen Kefang, in their 60s and 70s, had been sentenced to three and seven years respectively, for their shared faith in Falun Gong.