Rabat, April 24 -- Over 160 artists and intellectuals have signed an online petition demanding the Moroccan government free Hirak activists.

The petition is yet another call to authorities to release the activists, whom police arrested for rallying against corruption and unemployment in northern Morocco's Rif region in "unauthorized protests" in 2016 and 2017 in what is known as the Hirak movement.

Actors, writers, and intellectuals signed the petition, criticizing the heavy prison sentences imposed on the activists and demand their immediate release.

On April 5, the Court of Appeals in Casablanca upheld the prison sentences imposed on dozens of the Hirak activists in June 2018.

The court sentenced the leader of the movement, Nasser Z...