As news has been breaking that a 61-year-old grandfather of five has been jailed for 20 years for sending SMS messages, the Thai Democrat Party has taken the unusual step of launching a"cyber warrior" club. One of the club's primary aims is the tracking down and reporting anyone who might be committing lese majeste.

In addition, according to a Democrat Party Deputy Spokesperson, Mallika Boonmeetrakool (see her Twitter feed here), the Democrats are also threatening to launch a law suit against any government official who refuses to act on information provided to them by the "cyber warriors".

Thai Democrats threaten to file charges against government.

According to one tweet by Mallika (rough translation): "If the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology doesn't act on the evidence from the 200 websites we have already given them we will use the Democrat Party legal team to file action against them using section 157 of the criminal code."

Section 157 states:

Whoever, being an official, wrongfully exercises or does not exercise any of his functions to the injury of any person, or dishonestly exercises or omits to exercise any of his functions, shall be punished with imprisonment of one to ten years or fined of two thousand to twenty thousand Baht, or both.

The implication of this is that the Democrats are full-square against any reform of lese majeste and are threatening to prosecute the Pheu Thai government if they refuse to make lese majeste arrests.