(Minghui.org) I couldn’t stop crying when I heard about the passing of Ms. Zou Xiuju on August 10, 2023. I met while we were incarcerated for our shared faith in Falun Dafa.
The first time I met Ms. Zou was in May 2005 when I was detained in the notorious Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. I was taken to a room on the third floor of the building and saw someone cleaning the floor. The moment we looked at each other, she smiled at me. She then held up her hand and made a fist in front of her chest. I knew she was also a Falun Dafa practitioner and she was encouraging me to stay strong. Although we couldn’t talk to each other as the inmates were watching us, the eye contact we had was more than a thousand words. I was so delighted, because she was the first practitioner I’d seen in 22 months during that dark period.
I saw Ms. Zou again less than a year later. Only then did I find out that her name was Zou Xiuju. When guard Ma Jishan and others called her name as they verbally and physically abused her, I was hung up by my wrists in a nearby room. The guards then closed the door to torture her and only from the report on Minghui.org did I learn about the brutal force-feeding and hanging torture she endured at that time.
Towards the end of 2006, the labor camp reassigned the practitioners initially held together to different wards. Although I wasn’t in the same group as Ms. Zou, I often met her during restroom breaks. The inmates watching us still didn’t allow us to talk to each other and they sometimes yelled at us, but we managed to find ways to communicate and we learned more about how practitioners in the Dalian Forced Labor Camp resisted the persecution. We also began to resist the persecution and the torture was alleviated for a period of time.
Although my interactions with Ms. Zou were very limited, the empathy we had for each other was very special to me. Even though she has left us for now, she is still alive in my heart.
Related report:
63-Year-Old Liaoning Woman Dies Destitute After Years of Persecution for Her Faith
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