airbnb – Dark Nights

Berlin, Germany: Wild demo in memory of Kyriakos Xymitiris

Posted on 2025/02/12 by darknights

On October 31 our anarchist comrade Kyriakos Xymitiris was killed and our anarchist comrade Marianna M. was severely wounded in an explosion in an apartment in Athens. She was brought to the Evangelismos Hospital, where she was treated under constant police surveillance, and later transferred to the pre-detention prison in Korydallos. In the aftermath of what happened that day also our anarchist comrade Dimitra Z, our comrades Dimitris and Nikos R. and another person have been arrested and imprisoned in the same case.

Since then sorrow and rage have been present in our lives. Sadness for losing a comrade who committed to the fight to the end and by all means; anger because it is this capitalist, racist and patriarchal system that killed him. Kyriakos did not choose to close his eyes on the economic and political interests of a few who condemn us to a life of misery through the sale of houses to vulture funds, labor precariousness, feminicides, borders and wars. In the city of Berlin Kyriakos he has been committed for years in the defense of released spaces and against gentrification, in the internationalist struggle, in the abolition of prisons, as well as in all social and class struggles.

His passion and believes for a new world free of oppression leave a huge emptiness in those who were around them, as well as in the struggle itself. However, his imprint through words and actions encourages us to keep the thread of the insurrection alive, thus continuing the vision of the social revolution present in our hearts and minds. A revolutionary action that understands the armed struggle as a decisive medium in favor of those of the bottom in the balance of power, which tries and manages to return to the state part of the violence that every day imposes us.

We understand that through the defense of his memory we also stand next to all those who gave their lives or and were imprisoned to fight against injustice, inequality and exploitation.

For all this reason and collecting the call of February 7 and 8 of the Greek comrades from Athens, we want to face those who try to pervert this memory. As well as express our solidarity to the comrades imprisoned in the same case. For this reason we decided to have a short wild demo through Friedrichshain where we had shared together many collective moments of happiness and rage. Obstacles were put on the streets, graffiti in memory of Kyriakos were sprayed. Afterwards in Rigaer Street arriving forces of the occupiers were fought with stones.

This neighborhood of Berlin, as well as other metropols in the world, has faced a huge process of gentrification. In the last years where collective spaces where evicted to be transformed in yuppi restaurants and shops, people with low sources are getting displaced to the periphery, the airbnb are rising while the rents are becoming unbearable and the policies about how to use the public space are more repressive.

We, as Kyriakos did, can’t turn our eyes away of this process that destroys the city and the different communities living there. We, the ones that believe in a better world, want to go out of this precarity where the ones not conforming the norm are condemned. For this reason, as many other protest and answers are taking place in different cities, we want to stand against it and continue the path that we already walk with our friend and comrade Kyriakos. This path that cost his life. Him in our minds, his ideas in our hearts. Together taking back the streets of Berlin and Athens again. Revolutionaries hearts burn forever!

Freedom for our comrades Marianna M., Dimitra Z, Dimitris and Nikos R.!

Kyriakos Present!

Source: https://de.indymedia.org/node/491644

Ioannina, Greece: Taking responsibility against the tourism industry & real estate

Posted on 2025/02/07 by darknights

Last week the windows of the real estate company Casa – Real estate & airbnb services, which was trying to open a branch in Ioannina in the pedestrian street of Kaplani 3, one block from the town hall, were broken through. The shop was not yet furnished except for a sticker on the glass with the business name and logo: a waiter bowing with a towel tucked into his arm serving a house on his tray. In the days after the “renovation” of the facade, the owners removed the sticker and put a rent notice on the little glass left around the sticker. The business is not advertised on the internet, so this is probably a new attempt to manage our exploitation and misery.

Good riddance!

Night patrol

Source: Blessed is the Flame

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks on Airbnb, hotels and cameras in Exarcheia

Posted on 2023/04/28 by darknights

In a virgin forest, a wild mountain, a quiet clean sea, a beautiful neighbourhood, the capitalist sees a “fillet”, a new field of investment and profitability. There is nothing in the world we live in, in the world of state power and the capitalist organization of the economy, that does not have a certain exchange value, that is not valued in money. Such is the nature of capital that it is driven to perpetual expansion as a condition of its survival and reproduction. Everything in nature and society is a target and a field for exploitation. In a miniature version of this process, the neighbourhood of Exarchia has recently been subjected to one of the strongest attacks in recent decades by the State and Capital. Like many other neighbourhoods in the centre of Athens, Exarcheia is still an ‘unexploited’ field for various kinds of big investors. A neighbourhood in the centre of the city, in the midst of its facade, that has been “left behind” in terms of infrastructure, big investments and profit supply to the capitalist machine.

But it is also a special neighborhood. It is different from the other – several other – downtown neighbourhoods that remain ‘underdeveloped’ and undeveloped and for which the same future of ‘development’ is foreseen. It is the neighbourhood of movements, of struggles, of politicised youth, of radicalism, of anarchists. The state has every reason to allocate many of its forces and resources to subjugate, refine, clean up, normalize Exarcheia and offer it, under its auspices, as a pawn to investors. The state knows that, traditionally, Exarcheia is the reference point of radical movements, the “headquarters” of the internal enemy. In recent years, and with particular intensity during the New Democracy government, the state has been attempting to fight what it imagines to be the final battle for the neighbourhood.

This is not, of course, a choice detached from the big picture of state policy. At the juncture of the last few years, the state seems to have considered – and, moreover, proclaimed – that it is the historically and socially appropriate moment to end the deep-rooted domestic revolutionary tradition, political radicalism, anarchists, movements, what its right-wing managers call the “ideological hegemony of the left”. In the era of economic crisis, high inflation and the coming recession, war and geopolitical upheavals, the Greek state is being shielded in the face of an unstable future. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attacks on Airbnb, hotels and cameras in Exarcheia” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the attack at the metro station Syngrou/Fix

Posted on 2022/10/15 by darknights

In recent times we have seen the intensification of state repression which no doubt aims at the abolition of previous social and class gains. This intensification can be reflected in the violent repression of workers’ strikes, in the entry of police forces into universities, and in the expansion of the attack and repression on any form of social and class resistance (from the repeated police attacks on marches and gatherings to the recent attack on a concert in a university in Thessaloniki*). Amongst the above, another of the main peaks of this attack is taking place in Exarcheia, under the pretext of the metro stop and the redevelopment of the Strefi Hill, the state has launched an unprecedented attack in its attempt to change the political and social correlations within the neighbourhood. The constant presence of MAT riot police and the OPKE (armed SWAT style cop unit) playing the role of an occupying army in order to further territorialise the totalitarian doctrine of order and security within the neighbourhood is the most striking sign of this new strategy and the new reality that the state wants to impose.

However, what is happening in Exarcheia also has a very specific economic and class dimension, since both the metro stop and the redevelopment of the hill of Strefi are included within the more general plans of capital and the state for the reconfiguration of the urban fabric through the processes of redevelopment and gentrification, which have the sole purpose of creating new fields of profitability on the backs of the working class. The airbnb, alternative bars etc. that are popping up one after the other, in combination with the metro and the redevelopment of the Strefi and the army of occupation that is trying to suppress any form of resistance create the necessary conditions for the methodical transformation of the neighbourhood into a politically sterile alternative centre of consumption. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for the attack at the metro station Syngrou/Fix” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for arson of a UNISON vehicle

Posted on 2022/09/28 by darknights

UNISON is an environmental killer company carrying out Bakoyannis’ orders, with the aim, using saws, of wiping out everything wild that surrounds us. Its employees follow the orders of the cops. The rich want to see the world we dream of wiped out forever.

UNISON kills the trees and bushes, cuts the grass and branches to make our parks and streets more livable. To remove the possibility of hiding from the forces of repression. To facilitate evacuations of homeless people who take refuge in the wild darkness. Place lights to eliminate the darkness. For in the darkness the wild grows. The wild and the darkness scares them – the state, the rich, the cops, the culture.

The last UNISON attack was in Cyprus Park in Patissia. They are also central to the current attacks against Strefis Hill and Drakopoulos Park. The company is also present at metro stations such as Omonia.

It was very nice to find one of their company vehicles parked on the streets of Metaxourgeio, at the corner of Paramythias and Mykalis streets. So in the early morning hours of September 27th we burned it, so they could pay a little bit of what they have taken.

Our attack is in the context of class warfare: while underpaid workers go to work on public transport, middle-class UNISON employees have company vehicles, representing their aggressive concept of a clean and safe metropolis. The location of our fire, in a neighbourhood suffering from a constant gentrification campaign that excludes the poor to establish another silly entertainment and airbnb district. And UNISON is a central part of this gentrification process across the city.

Anarchists

Source: athens.indymedia

Exarcheia, Athens, Greece: Intervention at an airbnb

Posted on 2022/07/24 - 2022/07/24 by darknights

The analyses about the gentrification of the Exarcheia neighbourhood are now well known and part of the discourse and practice of the anti-authoritarian space. Evictions of houses, cop culture, frugal tourists that frolic undisturbed in their new playground. Squatter evictions, mega real estate companies, and so much more that we see in our neighborhood every day.

Gentrification is our violent exchange with first class citizens and visitors. For what purpose? For political deadening, for counter-insurgency, for profit. But the actions of our diverse movements will sweep them away once again.

As a minimal act of support for the struggle of Exarchia, we intervened in the airbnb on Tsamadou by throwing buckets of stinking paint into its courtyard and breaking the electric bells at the entrance. This building has been targeted many times with spray paint and so on, as it was the site of the Omokentro squat a few years ago. Also the homeless man who had been living across the street from the airbnb for a long time, suddenly disappeared from his place by magic… With a little talk with the neighborhood one understands that this man did not leave there by accident, but most likely he was evicted by the owners so as not to ‘spoil’ their image.

The targets are many and they are everywhere. Right down to the destruction of the last airbnb.

REDEVELOPMENT MEANS POOR DISPLACED PEOPLE

NO TO THE SUBWAY, REDEVELOPMENT OF THE HILLSIDE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF LUXURY HOUSING

COPS – INVESTORS OUT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD

angry neighbours

Source: athens.indymedia

Athens, Greece: Spasm of solidarity with G. Michailidis, attack on luxury apartments HESTIA and the company Grivas/Integrated IT Solutions

Posted on 2022/07/03 by darknights

On Sunday night 25/6, we attacked the luxury apartments HESTIA and the company Grivas/Integrated IT Solutions by breaking their windows on Alexandra Avenue.

Since 23/05 the anarchist political prisoner G. Michailidis is on hunger strike from 23.23.2005. His request is his formal release from the cells of bourgeois democracy, as he has served all the formalities set by their laws. Nevertheless, in his person the state is taking revenge for his steadfast attitude of struggle, his continuation of the struggle, his choice of escape and “illegality” far from capitulating to the regime. Thus, it keeps him in prison indefinitely, activating the dreaming of the statists, i.e. the police of thought and the possible commission of new offences.

For our part, we have nothing more to say but to declare that we are on the side of the hunger striker. This is why we attacked these two places.On the one hand, luxury housing is a target in a neighbourhood (Exarchia and Areos Pedion) that is under an all-out attack of appropriation.Our neighbourhoods are becoming unlivable. Rents are reaching a ceiling higher than the salary. Airbnbs are popping up on every corner and evicting anything that spoils their street. The bosses squeeze the workers. Thus, the neighborhood of the parts in particular becomes an investment hotbed, with private citizens, democrats and cops attempting to run the show.

On the other hand, Grivas/Integrated IT Solutions is one of many that offer their services where the money flows abundantly. And of course this is nothing but war. So, it provides solutions and investigations to NATO and by extension with the war machine of the Greek state, while cooperating in the prosecution of migrant(s) with the Greek coast guard. All this at a time when transnational antagonisms are at their peak and now openly with war on European soil. Of course, we do not ignore all these wars of low or high intensity in the periphery of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, etc., but neither do we ignore the role played by the Greek state in the war and annihilation of migrants attempting to cross the borders.

Every day it becomes clearer that we are the meat for their cannons. That we must run out of wages just for rent and electricity. That we must obey every new or old discipline for our own good. That rapists, all kinds of squealing journalists, politicians, cops, the military must have a say over our lives; that we should oppose all of the above with solidarity, self-organization and resistance to the state and capital.

Freedom to the anarchist G. Michailidis, hunger striker since 23/05

We want immigrants in all neighbourhoods and not tourists on holiday

We don’t fight for the states and the bosses, but only against them

anarchists

Source: athens.indymedia

Exarcheia, Athens, Greece: 25 June – Day of national and international support for the Exarcheia – Demonstration in Exarcheia Square 20:00

Posted on 2022/06/25 by darknights

Continue reading “Exarcheia, Athens, Greece: 25 June – Day of national and international support for the Exarcheia – Demonstration in Exarcheia Square 20:00” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on ‘airbnb StrefiHomm’ in Exarcheia

Posted on 2022/05/14 - 2022/05/14 by darknights

Last week we chose to disrupt for a while the now dystopian normality of the neighbourhood of the Exarcheia. The tourist industry is stepping on our bodies, displacing the local population, the poorer classes, the immigrant(s), grabbing more space from the hands of the antagonistic movement. A very important example of the ruthless march of capital into the neighborhood is the real estate firm, Homm.

This Greek company manages, buys, sells, rents apartments, villas and all kinds of properties in Athens, Mykonos, Evia and other areas. By browsing their site, one can see the luxury apartments they manage in “run-down” areas such as Patissia, but also in classic neighborhoods where gentrification has been completed such as Koukaki. Exarcheia seems to be their preferred neighborhood as they operate many properties such as luxury apartments and airbnb. Many of these are being targeted in protests in Exarchia. In fact, one can distinguish them by the paint people throw on their facades and the slogans they write.

The company has 135 properties on booking.gr and its offices are located at 83 Poseidonos Street in Glyfada. It is neither the first nor the last company that camps and does business in Exarcheia, but it is a main agent of gentrification that, despite the hostile climate it receives, insists on expanding more and more, opening more properties. We will not tolerate another one of them making fun of us right in our faces, investing at our expense, selling alternativeism, head-butting the struggles and the history of the movements in the region. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on ‘airbnb StrefiHomm’ in Exarcheia” →

Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on luxury altenative tourist appartments ‘Graffiti Boutique’ in Exarcheia

Posted on 2022/02/27 by darknights

A new condition is shaping everyday life in the neighbourhoods of the city centre. The pre-election “promises” of Mayor Bakoyannis* for the complete transformation of the centre of the Athenian metropolis into a tourist zone are being put into practice with the fencing of the last squares and their conversion into metro stations.

The displacement of oppressed populations from the neighbourhood of Exarchia, the foundations of which have been laid under the Syriza government, through the evacuation of migrant squats, continues in terms of class warfare through the appropriation of the neighbourhood.

The unaffordable rents, the posh shops with expensive goods and services, the cameras on every corner and face controls at the entrance of shops make it impossible for the social base to stay.

Housing becomes a commodity and capital is called upon to exploit it to the fullest. Houses and former squats are being converted into airbnb and luxury housing, which local and international capital is throwing into the real estate market at the expense of the needs and burdening the lives of those below. Continue reading “Athens, Greece: Responsibility claim for attack on luxury altenative tourist appartments ‘Graffiti Boutique’ in Exarcheia” →