A PETA activist was already walking away when a man with a stick raised his hand and hit her in the face.
It happened on Friday, September 4, on the Karavolades steps in Santorini, the stone route where hundreds of donkeys and mules carrying tourists climb up and down under the sun. A small group of German women from PETA had made it there to protest those rides and to show something different: climbing the slope using robotic exoskeletons, without needing to ride an animal.
Before the protest began, several handlers had already surrounded them. They demanded that they not take photos, snatched the camera from one of them and tore up their signs. When the tension escalated, the blow came: the woman fell against the steps while her companions shouted “Don’t touch her!”. PETA Germany announced that it would file criminal charges against those responsible and asked tourists who had recorded the scene to contact the organization. In 2023, they had already reported the treatment of the island’s donkeys; almost nothing has changed since then.