These unemployed protesters ate in public - before dawn

A Moroccan man campaigning to change the law banning eating in public during the Muslim Ramadan fast says he has received 100 death threats this week.

Radi Omar denied that his group was anti-Islam. "We are in favour of individual freedom," he told the BBC.

Six of his colleagues are in custody after planning to eat in public last Sunday and he demanded their release.

Mr Omar said they were being well treated but he assumed they were not being fed during the fasting hours.

The group, known as the Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms (Mali), has more than 1,200 members on its Facebook site.

They planned a public defiance of the law at the train station in Mohammedia near Casablanca last Sunday but were dispersed by the police.

The protesters were prevented from eating and so should not have been detained, Mr Omar said, adding that they have not been charged.

Under Moroccan law, eating in public during the hours of daylight, when Muslims are supposed to observe a fast, can lead to a fine and up to six months in prison.