Wei Jingsheng

Wei Jingsheng is a Chinese human rights and democracy activist known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement. He was sentenced to jail twice for a total of more than 18 years due to his democracy activities, including a groundbreaking and well publicized essay he wrote in 1978 entitled “The Fifth Modernization.” He is the author of “Courage to Stand Alone—letters from Prison and Other Writings,” which compiles his articles written initially on toilet paper in jail. Wei was a recipient of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2000.