They don’t give importance to us, we shouted “[PM Nikol] Pashinyan” for 4 hours, I do not know what else; no one [from the government] answered. The protesting livestock farmers, who have blocked the motorway near Khor Virap community of Armenia’s Ararat Province, noted this today. They are protesting against the slaughter of their animals in slaughterhouses.

Governor of Ararat Garik Sargsyan is also here.

"The issue has two sides," he said. “We have to organize the slaughter in a civil way, and there is dissatisfaction by the people. We have to go along that ‘road.’"

“At 6 o'clock [in the evening] we all wait for you in the hall of the regional administration. Assemble how many protesters there are, come," the governor added, in particular.

The livestock farmers agreed to wait until 6:30pm and reopened the road, but they also noted: "If we do not solve our issue, we will also close the airport, we will close it all!"

At present the Armavir-Yerevan motorway is still closed, where the protest action is still going on.

As reported earlier, these livestock farmers’ dissatisfaction is related to the long distance from their settlements to the slaughterhouses and the prices the latter offer for slaughtering the animals. They argue that making the slaughtering of their animals in slaughterhouses mandatory deprives them of their income. They have been protesting in front of the government building for the last few days demanding a meeting with the prime minister. Their rally yesterday was accompanied by the closing of some streets.

The government's decision, according to which meat sold in Armenia must have a document certifying that it was slaughtered in a slaughterhouse—which is a food safety guarantee, came into force on January 15.