ArmInfo
Representatives of the two press clubs of Armenia - economy and ecology journalists of Armenia protest against actions of new ecology minister, the former urban minister Aram Harutyunyan.
As ArmInfo correspondent came to know from trustworthy sources, the minister has recently organized a trip of several representatives of mass media, including the local TV company 'H2' to Tekhut copper-molybdenum deposit in Lori region of Armenia.
These mass media were "charged" to prepare articles where the ecology measures of Armenian Copper Programme (ACP) were presented positively. Meanwhile, the major part of 20 ecology public organizations, that formed the coalition SOS-Tekhut and members of the above mentioned press clubs did not find themselves in that trip.
To recall, at the beginning of the current year the coalition SOS-Tekhut applied to the president of the republic with a letter and asked to revise the problem of expediency of exploiting the deposit via the open processing. Moreover, ecologists said about violation of several laws and international conventions as well as about defects of the project on exploitation of the deposits, charged by the ACP, that got a right to exploit that for 25 years.
The project did not contain conclusion on possible damage to the health of the Tekhut and Shnokh residents, as well as ancient archaeologic monuments, virgin wood and fresh water source, that runs through the Tekhut deposit.
Members of the organizations are going to submit to the minister their protest against evident attempts to isolate the active part of the ecology community of the country from the problems of Tekhut. But the minister avoids meeting them, and his assistants explain this that himself with the affairs, he is not ready to meet them.
July 06, 2007