A protest action of residents of the settlement of Megradzor held in front of the President’s residence

On January, 25, residents of the Armenian settlement of Megradzor dissatisfied with construction of gold ore processing workshop in the territory of the settlement held an action of protest near the President’s residence in Yerevan.

“Megradzor Gold” company is planning to build the workshop. According to the participants of the action, sodium cyanide, a high-toxic substance a fatal dose of which for a human makes 0,1 gram, will be used in the industrial processes there. According to the company’s information, the workshop is environmentally safe for it will work is the regime of a so-called “closed cycle”.

The participants unfolded posters: “No to cyanides”, “No to cyanide in Megradzor”, “For our children’s health sake”. The residents demanded to stop construction of the workshop where gold was already being gained openly and hold public hearings in the settlement in order to find out how the company passed from operating the mines in a closed system to an open one, Tert.am reports.

The respective appeal signed with the help of the activists’ efforts by 500 to 800 persons, by different sources of calculation, was submitted to the President’s Administration, A1+ TV company reports.

According to Director of “Megradzor Gold” public corporation Vardan Markaryan, he considers the accusations of environmental non-compatibility groundless. As far as he knows the action of protest was organized “by a group of young people who during 4 or 5 years illegally misappropriated gold-bearing ore when the mine was frozen” and the signatures against the factory were sham. “I am ready to construct the factory in any other place wherever the Government tells me”, Director of the company said.