(Minghui.org) Three Dongying City, Shandong Province residents in their 70s have been detained for practicing Falun Gong, despite Chinese law prohibiting people older than 70 from being held in detention facilities.

Mr. Geng Lutang and his wife, Ms. Zou Peixia, were arrested on September 17, 2019 and Ms. Lu Qiulan on September 26, after they were reported for talking to people about Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

The police ransacked the practitioners’ homes without showing a search warrant or their IDs. The practitioners’ Falun Gong books and related materials were confiscated.

The police initially promised to release the practitioners in a month. But now they refuse to release them, even after the prosecutor returned the practitioners’ cases for insufficient evidence.

It was reported that the police resubmitted the practitioners’ cases to the procuratorate on October 22.

Mr. Geng is currently held at Hekou Detention Center. Ms. Zou and Ms. Lu are detained at Dongying Detention Center. Their families have been barred from visiting them.

Ms. Zou’s lawyer went to the detention center on October 21 to see her, but he was also turned away. He has filed a complaint with the prosecutor against the police for blocking his visitation.

The police are also attempting to prevent Ms. Lu’s family from hiring a lawyer to represent her.

Ms. Lu was once detained for two and a half months and extorted out of 5,000 yuan because she refused to renounce Falun Gong.