A planned protest by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) out­side TSTT House in Port of Spain was can­celled at the last minute on Fri­day morn­ing af­ter po­lice con­tact­ed the union to with­draw per­mis­sion for the demon­stra­tion.

CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer said she was in­formed by po­lice in a phone call ear­ly Fri­day that the protest could no longer pro­ceed.

Ogeer said per­mis­sion had been grant­ed for the demon­stra­tion as re­cent­ly as Thurs­day, and she had been told that the union could pro­ceed pro­vid­ed the protest re­mained peace­ful.

How­ev­er, she said she was lat­er in­formed that the au­thor­i­ties had not con­sid­ered the 500-me­tre re­stric­tion on pub­lic protests un­der the State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions.

The reg­u­la­tions pro­hib­it pub­lic protests or demon­stra­tions with­in 500 me­tres of sev­er­al des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Fi­nance at the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex on In­de­pen­dence Square.

The min­istry is a block from the lo­ca­tion where the CWU planned to demon­strate.

The re­stric­tion was in­tro­duced un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Pub­lic Protests and Demon­stra­tions) Or­der, 2026.

Ogeer said the union was there­fore forced to call off the protest.

The CWU had an­nounced the demon­stra­tion for noon Fri­day at TSTT House.

The mat­ter is de­vel­op­ing.