AT THE risk of it sounding like the start of a joke, how many elderly vicars does it take to rescind a ridiculous law? Or great grans? Or Holocaust survivors?

Maybe it takes just one of us.

“We now live in a police state,” my brother wrote last week despairingly from England. “Watch the video to see why.” The video, posted by the Guardian newspaper, showed Laura Murton, a lone pro-Palestine protester on a Kent pavement who was told, preposterously, by police desperately searching for a reason to detain her, that embracing a viewpoint that is also held by a proscribed group violates the Terrorism Act.

The proscribed group in question is, of course, Palestine Action, a name it’s dangerous to say out loud or display on a sign ever since Parliament voted on July 2 to approve the decision by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to proscribe them as a terrorist group.

“This is obviously an officer who doesn’t understand the law at all,” commented the same judge who, on July 18, refused Palestine Action’s request to temporarily block the proscription order, referring to the police harassment of Murton, who had no signs supporting Palestine Action.

Murton was alone, but waves of protesters plan to keep coming, ever since they first gathered in Parliament Square the morning after the proscription against Palestine Action came into effect. That protest was called by Defend our Juries and 27 were arrested for holding signs in support of the group. One of them was longtime activist Angie Zelter, 74, who has more arrests — all for civil disobedience — than anyone else in Britain.

“We are going closer and closer to a fascist dictatorship,” said Zelter, adding that “we didn’t expect that with a Labour government.” That means rallying in ever greater numbers, she said. Simultaneous actions across Britain are being organised for August 9 with at least 500 people planning to be arrested, 50 in each in location. But “we can’t stop at 500 even,” Zelter said. “We’re going to have to have huge numbers of people coming out.”

No-one arrested so far has actually been charged, Zelter said, “so it’s very confused at the moment.” Section 12 of the Terrorism Act carries a penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment, and/or a fine, for offences related to supporting a proscribed organisation. Section 13 carries a maximum sentence of six months and/or a fine for displaying items associated with a proscribed terrorist organisation.

Most of those arrested have been older people, including a woman who parked herself on a wet pavement proclaiming, “Shame on the state of Israel for what they’re doing to the Palestinian people at the moment.”

When asked by police, “Are you going to stand up for the search?” she replied, “No, I’m bloody not!” Defend our Juries, which posted the footage, added the caption: “Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear jeans and a raincoat.”

Meanwhile, here in Washington, DC, where we live under daily harsh crackdowns against immigrants and a persistent assault on free speech, scientific integrity and the truth, no-one has so far censored the signs we can carry at marches and rallies.

“Foxtrot, Delta, Tango” is one of the most popular signs among military veterans. (Hint: it’s an acronym for a more forthright disparagement of the man in charge.) The Palestinian flag flies freely. None of the pro-Palestine groups here have been proscribed, although overseas students especially, who support an end to the Gaza genocide, have been targeted for arrest and deportation.

Up on Capitol Hill, if you stand on the pavement with a sign, you might be charged with “incommoding,” (yes, sometimes we are indeed forced to ask ourselves which century we are living in.)

If you enter a Senate or House building or the Capitol itself and walk around carrying signs, as a group protesting the Gaza genocide recently did, you will be asked three times to disperse or face arrest.

“So walking is demonstrating?” one group member asked a police officer. “It’s considered parading, sir,” came the reply.

The group were also told they were “drawing attention” to their issue, another offence.

“Parading” mused the protester. “And we’re not supposed to draw attention to our cause. I thought that was what people come to Congress for, specifically.”

The penalty for parading and incommoding is $50. It’s a catch and release routine, at least for the first offence. Three times and you will spend a single night in a very uncomfortable and noisy Washington, DC jail cell, as the actress Jane Fonda did here several years ago during one of her weekly “Fire Drill Friday” climate protests on Capitol Hill.

Fonda slept on her coat, since no blanket was provided, then emerged the next morning to celebrate her 82nd birthday.

A single night, not six months or 14 years.

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.