TUNIS: Around 65 Tunisian Islamist prisoners have ended a hunger strike they began to demand their sentencing or immediate release, but seven are still refusing food, a human rights organisation said on Friday.

Justice ministry official Fadhel Saihi confirmed to AFP that the protest had been suspended, but did not say how many prisoners were involved.

The Liberty and Equality Association did not specify when the hunger strike began, but said it was concerned for the health of one protester, Mohamed Ali Ben Nasr, who stopped eating a month ago and was taken to hospital on Tuesday.

Nasr’s lawyer Anouar Ouled Ali said he was in critical condition.

In November, up to 200 hardline Salafist prisoners refused to eat, and two fellow inmates died after refusing food for nearly two months.

Most of the strikers had been arrested in connection with a wave of attacks blamed on Tunisia’s hardline Salafists that has rocked the country since its revolution of January 2011.

Around 220 Salafist Islamists have been arrested in 2011 and 2012 in relation to numerous attacks, according to Saihi.