Wei Jingsheng

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Wei Jingsheng (2007)

Wei Jingsheng ( Chinese  魏京生 , Pinyin Wèi Jīngshēng ; born May 20, 1950 in Beijing ) is one of the most important political dissidents in the People's Republic of China . During the Beijing Spring , he made his demands for democracy known on the Democratic Wall and was imprisoned in prisons and labor camps for 15 years. He has lived in the USA since 1997 , where he continues to campaign for the democratization of China.

Life

Wei Jingsheng was born in Beijing in 1950. Wei's parents were loyal members of the Communist Party . Wei's father held a high position in the Foreign Ministry and had connections with the highest levels of government and party. Wei's mother was a party cadre in an industrial company. The family lived in a complex where only party cadres lived. Wei Jingsheng, the oldest of four children, attended elite schools and was raised to be a devoted Maoist .

During Wei's childhood, the People's Republic of China was built into a Soviet- style state . Land and production facilities were collectivized , enemies of the state fought and intellectuals, scientists and artists persecuted as part of the campaign against the right . The attempt of Mao Zedong to catch up with the development deficit to the industrialized world with the great leap forward in 1958 ended in a complete disaster and an enormous famine.

When Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution in 1966 , Wei Jingsheng was just 16 years old. Wei became one of the many enthusiastic members of the Red Guards . He left Beijing , toured north and north-west of China, and learned about the life of rural people under communist rule. Upon his return, Wei joined the United Action Committee , a group of Red Guards who opposed Jiang Qing- backed factions. The ban on this United Action Committee led to Wei's temporary arrest in 1967. Wei's mother was mistreated as a class enemy during the Cultural Revolution. When she developed cancer, she was denied treatment.

When the People's Liberation Army was used to curb the violence by the Red Guards in 1968 , Wei Jingsheng fled to relatives in Anhui . There he heard about the great famine during the "Great Leap Forward". In 1970 Wei himself became a member of the People's Liberation Army, mainly to avoid deportation to the countryside. After two years, Wei left the army and worked as an electrician at the Beijing Zoo .

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the arrest of the gang of four , a power struggle broke out between the radical wing of the communist party and a liberal wing around Deng Xiaoping . This phase was characterized by a relative political openness. A democracy movement emerged in Beijing, the center of which was the democracy wall. Weis' first contribution to the Democratic Wall appeared a few weeks after the beginning of this movement in the early morning hours of December 5, 1978. The article, which, in addition to Deng's four modernizations, called for a fifth modernization, namely democracy, attracted particularly great attention. Wei argued that people are legitimately entitled to democracy and that anyone who withholds democracy from people is a shameless bandit, no better than a capitalist who robs the workers of the money they have made with their sweat and blood.

During this phase of relative openness, Wei was able to ask the secret police about the whereabouts of fellow soldiers who had been arrested or to meet with foreign journalists. Beginning in January 1979, Wei and a few other activists published a magazine called Exploration . In this magazine he published articles in which he complained about the illegality of arrests of political activists or called for the release of all political prisoners.

On March 19, 1979, new rules for the publication of expressions of opinion came into force, which had been ordered personally by Deng Xiaoping after his visit to Jimmy Carter . Only writings were allowed to be published that were subordinated to the four basic principles of Deng's policy. Wei then asked in an article whether Deng wanted democracy or not and answered no . Wei argued that without democracy Deng would become a dictator like Mao Zedong.

On March 29, Wei was arrested along with other political activists. He was accused of divulging military secrets to foreigners about the People's Liberation Army march into Vietnam and engaging in counter-revolutionary propaganda. Wei, who did not have a lawyer at his trial, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and hard labor. From then on, he was not allowed to contact his family and his guards were not allowed to speak to him. Protests within China, but also from abroad, had no effect, such as Andrei Sakharov's personal letter to Prime Minister Hua Guofeng .

Despite international protests, Wei Jingsheng remained in solitary confinement, first in the Banbuqiao Detention Center and later in the Beijing No. 1 Prison. Until 1984, he was not allowed to leave his cell, where there was no fresh air or daylight. He was pressured to admit his offenses. As a punishment for his refusal, he was not even allowed to own a pencil or write letters to his family members. Wei's health deteriorated to the point that he lost his teeth and developed heart problems. In 1984 he was transferred to a labor camp in Qinghai Province . His detention conditions were eased a little here, so he was allowed to have contact with other prisoners.

In 1989, dissident Fang Lizhi requested Wei Jingsheng's release in a letter signed by 110 other prominent intellectuals. After the crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square , Wei Jingsheng was transferred to a labor camp in Nanpu, northern China, where his detention conditions deteriorated again. With hunger strikes, however, he forced minor improvements, such as access to books and the media. He repeatedly sent letters to members of the party and state leadership in which he asked for a revision of the judgment. In other letters he condemned the policy of the CP, for example in 1991, when he equated the human rights policy of the People's Republic of China with that of the Third Reich , or in 1992, when he sharply attacked the Tibetan policy of the CP in a letter to Deng Xiaoping .

In 1993, Beijing applied to host the 2000 Olympic Games . In a "gesture of goodwill," Wei Jingsheng was released on September 14, about six months before his 15-year prison term expired.

Despite warnings from the authorities, Wei Jingsheng immediately resumed his commitment to democratizing China by meeting with other activists and representatives of Western media. He was arrested again on April 1, 1994 and sentenced on November 21, 1995 to 14 years in prison for attempting to overthrow the government. Zhang Sizhi acted as defense attorney . Worldwide protests followed again, but also honors for Wei. In 1994 he was awarded the Olof Palme Prize and in 1996 the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament .

Wei Jingsheng was released on November 16, 1997 after Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton reached an agreement in historical talks to release dissidents. Wei, like the dissident Wang Dan , was immediately deported to the USA .

In the United States, Wei continued to campaign for the democratization of China. He founded the Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition (OCDC), which is an umbrella organization for Chinese democracy movements worldwide, and the Wei Jingsheng Foundation . In 1998 he and Wang Dan were awarded the Human Rights Prize of the Democracy Foundation of the US Congress .

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personal data
SURNAME Wei Jingsheng
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese dissident
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Beijing