Squat everywhere! Evict airbnbs!

On one of these nights, in the middle of an intensified police invasion and siege of the neighborhood of Exarcheia that is perpetrated by the state over the past 2 weeks, anarchist comrades made our way into buildings where luxury airbnb flats are situated, to deliver a message. The locks of the doors were sabotaged and the walls paint sprayed.

As we are all aware, the situation in Exarcheia is one of accelerated State pressure on the area, with an ongoing presence of MAT (riot cops) and other heavily armed police forces in every strategic axis around the Plateia. This military occupation of the district has come hand-in-hand with a new series of squat evictions and attacks on the self-organized community. Street harassment perpetrated by the police has also triggered a series of arrests within the militant and migrant communities.

This targeting of the rebellious spaces and dynamics within Exarcheia may have taken a more brutal and direct tone in recent weeks, but it is merely the continuation of a process which has been at work for years and which seeks to annihilate the local communities of self-organization and resistance to the law and capitalist domination.

This process is a diverse and enduring one, which manifests itself through the governmental plans to build a metro station in Exarcheia Square and to turn the Polytechneio into a museum, thus neutralizing two of the most vital spaces for the local movement.

Airbnbs are the most obvious and the most destructive manifestation of this process. In constantly increasing proportions, they are pushing working-class families and youth out of the area by appealing to the interests of landlords who see a golden opportunity in the pockets of the tourists who come to Exarcheia in quest of cheap thrills and the vague scent of radicality.

Faced with this reality our position is very clear: we cannot stand back and witness the military takeover of our neighborhood to make way for a consumerist travel resort, nor can we remain passive in the face of those who seek to sell off Exarcheia and the dynamics of struggle and resistance to which it has long stood as home. We will keep fighting against the bloodsucking capitalists and their armies. Until every neighborhood is Exarchia!

Last night’s attack was just a taste.

We strongly encourage all residents of the neighborhood to enquire about the status of flats around their own and to report and/or act out against the cannibal landlords who profit from the growing distress of the displaced populations of Exarcheia.

Instagram-tourists, the cops won’t save you ! You are not welcome here and you are not safe here. Landlord, your door is next.

the Sandstorm

(via Athens Indymedia)