The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is cau­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment against us­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SOE) to re­strict cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to peace­ful protest.

In a state­ment is­sued this morn­ing, the CWU said it notes “with grave con­cern” the im­pli­ca­tions of the re­cent­ly de­clared SOE, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it re­lates to re­stric­tions on move­ment and the pos­si­ble im­pact on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­pres­sion.

While the CWU made it clear that it sup­ports firm ac­tion to com­bat crime, it warned that emer­gency pow­ers must not be mis­used.