(Minghui.org) More than 20 residents of Chongqing, including an 82-year-old woman, were arrested on July 23, 2019 while studying the teachings of Falun Gong together.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

These practitioners studied Falun Gong books at Ms. Wen Tingyu's home. When they finished reading and were about to leave around noon, police officers who had been waiting outside broke in and arrested them.

More than 70 officers were involved in the arrests.

The officers took the practitioners to their respective neighborhood police stations and interrogated them. They also ransacked the practitioners' homes and confiscated their Falun Gong books and related materials.

It has been confirmed that the arrested practitioners include Ms. Wen Tingyu; Ms. Zhang Yougao, 82; Ms. Zhang Lan; Ms. Yuan Rong; Ms. Zhou Dulun; Ms. Guo Zhongbi and Ms. Zhang Hongrong.

While some practitioners were released around 10 pm that evening, others were kept in police custody, and their current detention locations remain to be investigated.

In addition to the abovementioned practitioners, another woman, Ms. Yu Yeying, was arrested around 2 pm on the same day. Seven officers broke into her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books.

Ms. Yu was brought to Shapingba Police Station for interrogation. The police collected her biometrics and asked whether she went to Nanxigudi District to distribute Falun Gong informational materials on July 9.

Ms. Yu suspected that the police's facial recognition system recorded someone distributing materials in that location on that day, but the image wasn't very clear, so they were trying to confirm whether it was her who was recorded by the camera. Ms. Yu was released around 5 pm that afternoon.