Wei Jingsheng is a Chinese human rights and democracy advocate. After his “Democracy Wall” posters in Beijing in 1978, and his founding of the journal Exploration, he spent two periods in prison (1979-93, 1994-97). He was awarded the Olof Palme Peace Prize in 1995 and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1996. Since his expulsion from China in 1997 he has lived in the United States. In 1998 he founded the Overseas Chinese Democracy Coalition.