Sweden has The Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm in solitary confinement, locked up for 23 hours a day, says his mother. Svartholm was convicted of helping people to break copyright law by creating and running the file sharing website.

­Two months ago, he was arrested in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, after the court sentenced him to one year behind bars in absentia. Shortly after the detention, Svartholm was extradited to Sweden.

Via email, the website vice.com corresponded with Kristina Svartholm, Gottfrid’s mother, regarding her son’s detention. Kristina has organized an email address to which fans, supporters can send letters to Svartholm in prison.

The co-founder’s mother said that “the prosecutor has claimed that Gottfrid could destroy evidence, disturb the investigation, and even commit crimes if he wasn't being held in custody with these restrictions… I wish to point out that there are two more persons involved in the same hack thing that he is suspected of now. Both have been kept in custody earlier, but both are free now, presumably free to do whatever they wish. This makes the need for ‘solitary confinement’ even more puzzling.”In November 2010, the Swedish Court of Appeals found three of the other co-founders of The Pirate Bay guilty of contributory copyright infringement offenses. Svartholm, the originator of the website, could not be present at the hearings due to medical circumstances, and the court set a separate hearing for him. However, his location could not be verified and the verdict was issued in his absence.

The founders have also been ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor (US$3.6 million) to several entertainment giants, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures. The media companies sued them for loss of revenues due to The Pirate Bay’s “hacking” of their content.

The site founders have frequently indicated that no sentence or fine would interfere with the work of The Pirate Bay.

The portal was designed in 2003 as the engine for searching “torrents” – small files that give users access to data that other users make available. In that way, the site does not directly provide music, movies, or books, but allows them to be searched and downloaded, “shared” among users.

Svartholm argued that his activity is legal, and no theft takes place.

“In the way Swedish copyright law is written, you’re not actually committing a crime if you're referencing to pirate material,” the portal’s founder said.

Despite being accused of violating the copyright laws of most countries, The Pirate Bay reportedly has 22 million users a month. It allows anyone with a computer and an internet connection to download the latest media free of charge.