Police stop actions of Amulsar protestors in Yerevan

The Yerevan police detained human rights defender Nina Karapetyants who held a solo picket against the development of the Amulsar deposit. The police also prevented activists from gathering in a city park.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that after local residents' protests against gold mining at the Amulsar deposit, law enforcers detained 14 people. The situation aggravated after at night on August 4, the "Lydian Armenia" Company replaced the trailers in which protesters were on duty near Mount Amulsar with their own ones.

Today, about a dozen activists have gathered in front of the government building with the demand to ban the development of the Amulsar deposit. However, it took several minutes from the police to stop the protest action. The police referred to the ban on mass gatherings imposed by the commandant's office, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reported with reference to the air of the "CivilNet.am" news agency on Facebook.

Human rights defender Nina Karapetyants, the head of the Helsinki Association of Armenia, found herself among the detainees. "I came to express my position on gold mining at the Amulsar deposit. It was a solo picket, but the police promptly detained us and claimed that solo pickets had been banned by a decision of the commandant's office," the human rights defender told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The police stopped another protest action against the development of the Amulsar deposit, which took place in the Yerevan Mashtots Park. "The protest action ended before it started. Policemen approached everyone, even those who were walking around the park, and demanded from people to leave the territory," said Mger Mazmanyan, a resident of Yerevan. The man added that he counted four activists detained by the police.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 6, 2020 at 06:26 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.