Who is Wei Jingsheng?
The prison system of the People’s Republic of China has achieved such “remarkable results in reforming criminals,” the government claims, that very few people have to be jailed a second time. By that measure, Wei Jingsheng, a former electrician, is one of the system’s most dismal failures. From a boy forced to memorize a page of Mao Zedong’s thought each day, he grew up to become China’s most renowned voice for human rights and democracy. Even fourteen-and-a-half years in gulag-like prisons failed to reeducate him, and so now he is back a second time.
The prison system of the People’s Republic of China has achieved such “remarkable results in reforming criminals,” the government claims, that very few people have to be jailed a second time. By that measure, Wei Jingsheng, a former electrician, is one of the system’s most dismal failures. From a boy forced to memorize a page of Mao Zedong’s thought each day, he grew up to become China’s most renowned voice for human rights and democracy.
