Hu Jia, 34, activist and dissident in the People’s Republic of China, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years on Thursday. The verdict was: guilty of “inciting subversion of state power” for criticizing the Communist Party.

The United States expressed an opposite opinion regarding this issue and international human rights groups condemned the verdict.

 “In this Olympic year, we urge China to seize the opportunity to put its best face forward and take steps to improve its record on human rights and religious freedom,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement, quoted by Reuters.

According to the official Xinhua news agency, Hu had made a “confession of crime and acceptance of punishment” and his lawyers said he had acknowledged “excesses.”

In a communist state, his acceptance of the prosecution's allegations and of the fact that some of his statements were contrary to the law, may lead to some additional questions.

Why wasn’t he allowed to speak for himself and other persons revealed his intentions and the way he thought about the accusations? One should know that foreign reporters and diplomats were excluded from Hu’s hearing, Reuters reports.

His situation was preceded by another similar one; in March, Yang Chunlin, who was also a Chinese dissident and a defender of human rights, was sentenced to five years in jail for the same crime. 

When someone dares to speak in public about the human rights and tries to be the advocate of democratic rights, religious freedom and self-determination for Tibet, that person receives in exchange for those acts the sentence to jail.

Hu Jia's family became also a victim of a state which decides to punish the voices that don’t speak like they should; Zeng Jinyan, Hu’s wife and their daughter have to stay under house arrest.