PETA Staged a Stunt on an Island That Can’t Afford One

A donkey handler in Santorini punched a PETA activist in the face this week.

Greek police are now involved – and so is a viral video that has half the internet outraged.

But the footage everyone is sharing cuts out the part where PETA showed up to kill the livelihoods of the men doing the punching.

PETA Has Been Running This Play Since 2018

PETA Germany did not show up on the Karavolades steps to hand out leaflets.

It showed up with robotic exoskeleton suits, planning to strap its activists into the devices and demonstrate – in front of the handlers whose families depend on the donkey trade – that tourists do not need them anymore.

That is not outreach.

That is a theatrical ambush staged at someone's workplace, designed to go viral at the expense of people who have no PR team and no way to fight back except badly.

PETA has run this exact campaign against Santorini's donkey trade since 2018, when it published its first undercover exposé alleging overloaded animals and poor saddle conditions.

It came back in 2019 with another video.

It came back again during the pandemic with a petition bearing over 160,000 signatures demanding the Greek government shut the trade down entirely.

Every time, the demand was the same: ban the rides, retire the animals, end it.

Greece responded.

Officials passed a 100-kilogram rider weight cap in 2018.

A cable car has operated between the Santorini port and the hilltop town of Fira for decades, giving every tourist a mechanical alternative to the stairs.

None of it was ever going to satisfy PETA, because PETA's goal was never better treatment of the animals.

It was abolition of the trade.

Those are not the same demand, and PETA has spent eight years making the second one while sounding like it only wanted the first.

The People PETA Wants to Put Out of Business

Santorini's mule drivers are not a faceless industry.

They are families who have worked those steps for generations.

The island's cable car system is structured to funnel a portion of its ticket revenue back to support the mule trade rather than replace it – a deliberate choice by local officials who see cultural and economic value in the tradition PETA wants eliminated.

Tourism is not part of Santorini's economy.

It is Santorini's economy.

When an outside activist organization parachutes in with cameras and robot suits to make the case that an island's traditional trade should disappear, it is not speaking for the donkeys.

It is speaking for itself.

PETA has the resources to absorb a bad news cycle.

The handlers on those steps do not.

The man who threw the punch made a criminal mistake and should face charges for it.

But an organization that spends eight years pressuring a small Greek island to destroy its own industry – and then arrives in person to dramatize that message directly in front of the workers it is targeting – does not get to claim surprise when the reception turns violent.

Germany Sent Activists. Greece Sent a Punch Back.

Here is the part that should fire up anyone who believes local communities have the right to run their own economies.

PETA Germany chose Santorini.

It flew its activists to a Greek island, armed them with exoskeletons and protest signs, and staged its demonstration on the steps where those workers earn their living.

Not in Berlin.

Not outside the Greek embassy.

On the actual steps, in front of the actual men, on a workday.

If PETA genuinely wanted fewer overloaded donkeys and not just footage for its fundraising emails, it had a straightforward path: push Greece to enforce the weight limit it already passed in 2018 and never adequately monitored.

Instead it went back to Santorini with robot suits.

Ending a family's livelihood and calling it animal justice is the easiest version of activism there is.

It is also the least honest one.

Sources:

• Georgia Rowe, "Moment angry donkey owner attacks animal activist in Santorini after she vows to defend animals used as transportation," Daily Mail, September 8, 2026.
• PETA, "VIDEO: Donkey Handlers Violently Attack Peaceful Protesters on Santorini," peta.org, September 2026.
• "Santorini: Donkey owners beat activists protesting the animals exploitation," Keep Talking Greece, September 8, 2026.
• PETA, "VIDEO: Investigation Reveals Abuse of Donkeys and Mules Used as 'Taxis' in Santorini," peta.org.uk, September 2018.
• PETA, "VIDEO: Donkeys and Mules Tormented on Santorini," peta.org.au, November 2019.
• PETA, "Over 160,000 People Urge Greek Government to Stop Cruel Donkey 'Taxi' Rides on Santorini," peta.org.au.
• "Santorini Cable Car," Wikipedia, accessed September 2026.