Wei Jingsheng (魏京生) (May 20, 1950 - ) is an activist in the Chinese democracy movement most prominent for authoring the document the Fifth Modernization for which he was sent to prison. After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China released Jingsheng for medical reasons on November 16, 1997. He then emigrated to the United States.
Dissidents who are widely known in the West such as Wei Jingsheng, Fang Lizhi, and Wang Dan are deported. Although Chinese criminal law does not contain any provisions for exiling citizens, these deportations are conducted by giving the dissident a severe jail sentence and the granting of medical parole.
In 1996 Wei Jingsheng was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
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