Candidate of Biological Sciences, Head of the Students Affairs Center at Yerevan State University Vahagn Varagyan has posted the following on his Facebook page:

“The situation regarding Amulsar can’t go on like this

The events surrounding the exploitation of the Amulsar gold mine have intensified again recently. Today police even tried to use force and disperse the citizens who have been protesting against the mine exploitation for a long time. We need to state the fact that the Armenian authorities failed to give final answers to several major questions, and most importantly, they failed to give those answers to the public.

The first and most important question is the following: Will the nature of Armenia, particularly the resorts and water resources of the region suffer irreversible losses as a result of exploitation of Amulsar? To receive the answer to this question, the government spent $450,000 from taxpayers’ money and ordered an expert study, but the results of this study and its impact can’t be seen.

The second question is the following: If exploitation of the mine is going to cause great damage to nature, what measures can be taken to prevent that or reduce the risks?

The list of questions goes on and on, but the most important thing is that the issue has to be solved once and for all. Enough is enough.”