By: Daniel McElroy

Silya Ziani, photo via Twitter

Silya Ziani, a detained Amazigh protest singer and one of the most recognizable faces of Morocco’s ongoing Rif Movement, is finishing the seventh day of a hunger strike that she says she will carry on indefinitely.

Ziani, who was arrested on June 5, joined her fellow imprisoned activists last month for a three day hunger strike demanding an end to “miserable conditions” at the Oukacha prison in Casablanca, where they are being held. She is the only woman from the movement to have been detained thus far, and along with the other activists was protesting conditions and prisoner treatment such as use of solitary confinement in the prison.

Ziani’s sister, Nawal, confirmed last week after speaking to Ziani that she had launched another hunger strike, refusing food and water on her own starting July 15. This time Ziani suggested that she would continue her hunger strike “to the death.”

Ziani and the other detained Rif activists have received an outpouring of support across Morocco. You can read more about Ziani’s detention and add your voice to those raised against Morocco’s suppression of peaceful protest in the Rif region here.