PROTESTS in 18 towns and cities and Britain’s biggest hunger strike since the Troubles were announced today amid intensifying calls to reform Britain’s repressive terror laws behind the ban on Palestine Action.

Organisers said around 1,500 people could take part in the demonstrations next month, while others will begin rolling hunger strikes this Sunday.

More than 2,000 people have been arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action during mass events where protesters held placards saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” after it was proscribed as a terrorist group in July.

Suspects face up to two years in jail without charge.

Some of the 33 people in custody following alleged criminal damage at RAF Brize Norton and Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems’ factory in Filton, Bristol, will go on hunger strike.

Yesterday, Clare Hinchcliffe became emotional as she told of how Britain’s terror laws were used to deny her 22-year-old daughter Zoe Rogers bail after she and five others were arrested at the Filton incident.

They and another 24 people due to face trial over a break-in have been kept jailed over the six-month custody time limit as prosecutors insist on a “terror connection” to the case.

Ms Hinchcliffe told a press conference: “When I saw Zoe in Westminster Magistrates’ Court in August last year, having not seen or heard from her for seven days, I expected to see her being given bail.

“She’s a young person with no previous convictions and good character references so according to the Bail Act she should have been let out on bail — she was not.

“Watching her being led out of that court room being denied bail was one of the most traumatic times of my life.”

She said that allowing “property damage with a political aim” to be legally classed as terrorism “urgently needs to be reformed” as she described how suspects were woken and arrested by armed police pointing four guns at their heads.

“The use of the terror laws against the protest groups only serves the government’s strategic relationship with Israel and its lucrative arms trade,” Ms Hinchcliffe said.

“The freedom of my daughter and of her brave fellow activists is being sacrificed on the altar of our government’s relationship with a genocidal state — shame on them.”

Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, now of the Cage NGO, added: “Do you think that breaking a window or a door can be an act of terrorism? For me it doesn’t make any sense.

“The terror law is being weaponised, misused and abused to silence people.

“These factories tomorrow are going to create drones to target you in your own home.”

Organisers said that the hunger strike is in response to the Home Office ignoring a recent letter calling for an end to censorship of books and letters sent to the prisoners, granting them bail, allowing them unredacted evidence of meetings between British and Israeli officials and Elbit Systems, dropping the terror link to their trials and de-proscribing Palestine Action.

Francesca Nadin of Prisoners for Palestine said: “They have exhausted all legal avenues, there’s a clear government abuse of power.

“They feel they have no other choice but to take drastic action for justice.”

The demonstrations come ahead of a legal hearing against former home secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group under anti-terror laws.

Defend Our Juries spokesman Dr Clive Dolphin said: “This is about here in the UK, people having the right to protest, the right to speak up to government when they think the government has got something wrong, and fundamentally this is about the fact that the British people oppose genocide.

“They do not want to be complicit in war crimes. They do not want to see people starved to death in an artificial famine. British people oppose genocide.”

RAF veteran of 19 years Steve Masters was arrested after attending the mass protests in September.

He said: “I never imagined the day would come when I would have to protest [at] my own government against a genocide.

He called on the Ministry of Defence to cancel a £2.7 billion contract with Elbit Systems, which he called “a political endorsement, a military insurance policy and a moral disgrace.”