Arson attacks exasperate residents

A spate of arson attacks in the area around the Athens University campus and the central neighborhood of Exarchia have left local residents wondering why police are not doing more to prevent or contain such incidents, with some even saying they are ready to take matters into their own hands.

But a desire for vigilantism is not the prevailing mood; fear is. Especially as, the locals say, the perpetrators appear indifferent to the possibility of the fires spreading to residences.

Early Thursday, a group of masked individuals set fire to five school buses, six cars and three motorcycles in the suburb of Zografou, close to the university campus. “I tried to save my two bikes, but the flames were too intense. I did not succeed,” says a resident who was awoken at 6 a.m. by a flash of light. “I had to pull the awnings up, to keep the apartment building from being set on fire,” he adds.

In Exarchia, a longstanding bastion of counterculture, where anarchists often hold sway, such incidents have long taken place. Lately, masked youths have taken aim at the Athens metro works on the neighborhood square, Airbnb apartments and what they call “hipster businesses” catering to visitors and tourists. The idea of gentrification is anathema to the masked mob, although at least some of them hail from the wealthy northern suburbs.

“To put it simply, we are not having a good time,” an Exarchia business owner says wryly. Both businesspeople and residents have expressed alarm at a flyer calling for a Saturday protest. The widely distributed flyer, prepared by a group styling themselves “Coordinated Action for the Defense of Exarchia,” has a photo of a shop engulfed in flames.

“They have become more aggressive. Something must be done,” a businessman declares, anonymously, of course, for fear of retribution.