The Danish media have been accused of failing to show enough, or any, interest in the fate of a man held in solitary confinement for his alleged internet activities.
Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay (TPB) - the anti-copyright website that facilitates peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol - has been in jail in Denmark since 27 November 2013.
Two weeks ago, his prison sentence was extended until 5 February, and it was revealed that he has been held in solitary confinement.
Svartholm Warg, who is known as Anakata, is facing a six-year jail sentence on charges of infiltrating the Danish social security database, drivers' licence database and the shared IT system used in the Schengen zone.
He was taken into Danish custody after being extradited from Sweden following a one-year jail term for computer hacking.
But he has widespread support in Denmark. A petition submitted to the Danish government calling for his release and the restoration of some privileges gathered more then 50,000 signatures.
Addressed to the Danish prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, it asks her government to consider whether such heavy-handed punishment is appropriate. It compares Svartholm Warg's prison conditions with those of a mass murderer, implying that the latter has a better time of it.
Supporters claim that there is a lack of media attention to his plight within Denmark. They don't seem to care, said one of them in an email to The Guardian.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has called Warg "a political prisoner" adding: "He worked tirelessly to help WikiLeaks expose the slaughter of civilians in Iraq by a US helicopter gunship and was responsible for an important part of our infrastructure."
Sources: The Inquirer/RT.com (1) and (2)/International Business Times
