Chinese human rights activist Wei Jingsheng (born 1950) has spent most of his adult life either in prison or exile for his participation in protests against his government's policies.

On November 16, 1997, Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng was released from prison in his country and allowed to fly to the United States. Imprisoned for all but six months since 1979, Wei's crime had not been a physical act but an intellectual one: questioning the policies of his country's Communist government. For his participation in the "Democracy Wall" movement in 1978, Wei had spent 14 years in prison. When, upon his release in 1993, he had proven himself unwilling to keep quiet about the abridgement of freedoms under China's totalitarian system, he was sentenced to another 14 years. But following talks between United States President Bill Clinton and China's President Jiang Zemin, Wei had been released and flown to Detroit, Michigan, where he received special treatment for...