Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukyan, currently detained as part of a money laundering investigation, has thanked those who have publicly called for his release.

Tsarukyan, in a Facebook post today, decried the suspension of his numerous businesses, describing the move as a blow to Armenia’s economy and depriving thousands of his employees from working.

“The most painful thing for me these days is that in all the enterprises affiliated with me, people have been deprived of the opportunity to go to work, to earn their daily bread. Working, good-creating enterprises have been stopped. Do you understand what a blow this is for entire sectors of business, across the country, and what a blow it is for working people who earn their living with honest sweat,” Tsarukyan’s post reads.

The businessman described the government’s move to suspend his businesses as a personal attack against him.

Tsarukyan writes that he is going ahead with plans to erect a massive statute of Jesus Christ outside Yerevan and that it will open a new, bright era for Armenia.

“It must stand as a new symbol of our unity, national renewal, and image before the world.”