Employees of several companies belonging to the Multi Group conglomerate owned by detained Prosperous Armenia Party leader and businessman Gagik Tsarukyan staged a protest outside the Armenian government building, demanding that their workplaces be reopened.
Speaking to reporters, Arman Piroyan, director of Multi Wellness, said that although the sports complex has reopened, the Yerevan Municipality continues, in his view, to use the company’s property without any legal basis, Sputnik Armenia reported.
According to Piroyan, the companies expect to receive some form of response regarding the other businesses on August 3, while he said he has no such expectation in the case of Multi Wellness.
Armine Davtyan, director of the Royal Sky restaurant in Tsaghkadzor, said they still have no information about when the companies will be allowed to reopen, when the freezes on their bank accounts will be lifted, or who will compensate employees who have been on forced leave for several weeks.
“If human lives are important to them, I believe they will give us an answer today. Even if they tell us the businesses will reopen in a week, at least we will know what to tell our employees,” Davtyan said.
About 40 minutes later, the company executives entered the government building to attend a meeting. It has not yet been announced which government official will receive them.
Beginning early on July 6, officers from Armenia’s National Security Service, the State Revenue Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs Police carried out simultaneous searches at more than 70 locations, including Tsarukyan’s residence and companies linked to him. Tsarukyan was detained. On July 7, the Court of First Instance of Avan and Nor Nork administrative districts considered his pretrial measure, and by the end of the day ordered his detention for two months.
