MARRAKESH, Morocco — A hunger strike among Islamists has been spreading across Morocco’s prisons since March, according to government officials and the head of a prisoner advocacy group.

At least 300 prisoners are now refusing some or all food, and 25 are now very weak, said Abderrahim Mouhtad, who leads the advocacy group, Ennassir, or Support. There were some reports that inmates were being fed intravenously.

Many of the hunger strikers, he said, are among the 1,400 people convicted of terrorism charges in the wake of the 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, in which at least a dozen suicide bombers killed more than 40 people in strikes on a hotel, a restaurant and Jewish establishments. The hunger strikers are demanding new trials or immediate release, arguing that their trials were not fair and that any confessions were coerced.

Moulay Hafid Benhachem, the official in charge of Morocco’s prison system, which was recently reorganized, declined to be interviewed. But two Moroccan government officials confirmed hunger strikes in 11 prisons. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the matter publicly.

A hunger striker reached by telephone in a prison in the city of Kenitra, just north of Rabat, the capital, said the prisoners wanted justice. “We had been parts of mass trials and got long sentences, even though there had been no evidence,” said the inmate, who identified himself as Mourad Sarouf and said he had been falsely convicted of being a member of a group that planned attacks in Morocco. “We want to have fair trials.”

In the past, hunger strikes by Islamist inmates have won them extra rights, including exclusive use of conjugal rooms. But this time, the government has refused to negotiate, Mr. Mouhtad said.

Another inmate reached by telephone, Abu Elkassim Britel, said he had drunk only water and eaten only small amounts of sugar since March to protest being convicted of membership in a terrorist organization, for which he was sentenced to nine years.

The European Parliament reported on his case in February 2007, saying Mr. Britel, an Italian citizen of Moroccan descent, had been arrested in Pakistan in March 2002, questioned by United States and Pakistani officials and then sent to Morocco. The report said that he had been under investigation in Italy before going to Pakistan, but that the Italian inquiry closed without any charges being filed. The parliamentary report urged the Italian government to take concrete steps to have him freed.

“I want my release,” he said. “Even the European Parliament has said that I am innocent, and asked the Italian government to get me out of here.”

One of the government officials said that a hunger striker had died — not one of the Islamist prisoners, but a man who had joined in to protest his own circumstances. Mr. Mouhtad confirmed that.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company