DOZENS of people are expected to be arrested across the country on Saturday for holding cardboard signs stating: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Police have been using the proscription of the activist group to threaten people for stating that Israel is committing a genocide, warned the organisers of Saturday’s Palestine march at midday in central London.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to attend the march, which will be the 28th national demo for Palestine.

The Stop the War Coalition said: “As we and many others predicted, police forces are now using the proscription to clamp down on all activism for Palestinian rights.

“This includes armed police threatening to arrest a woman for holding a Palestinian flag and signs saying ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Israel is committing a genocide.’

“We march for an end to the genocide and to the complicity of the British government, public bodies, companies and corporations in supporting it militarily, politically, diplomatically and economically.”

The coalition warned that Israeli troops are continuing to fire indiscriminately into crowds seeking aid as attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank intensify.

“We need everyone on the streets to demand an end to the horror and an end to our government’s complicity,” said a spokesman.

“Instead of attacking and criminalising our movement, the government should be expelling the Israeli ambassador and ceasing all trade with the genocidal state and end all arms sales.”

Defend Our Juries campaign group said Kent Police had threatened to arrest a woman, Laura Murton, on terrorism charges simply for holding a sign referring to Israel’s genocide with a Palestinian flag on Monday.

A spokesman said that this was “on the basis that that was sufficient to provide grounds for ‘suspicion’ that she was a supporter of a proscribed group.”

He added that members of Defend Our Juries and other campaign groups calling for the de-proscription of Palestine Action will face arrest under counter-terrorism legislation today in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper ordered that Palestine Action be banned as a terrorist organisation earlier this month after its members entered an RAF base at Brize Norton and spray-painted two military planes red.

The group’s co-founder Huda Ammori will seek permission for a full judicial review of the ban at the High Court on Monday.

Kent Police have been contacted for comment.