2 October 2003 - Socialist Party parliamentarians Jan Marijnissen and Krista van Velzen stood in front of a class at their old school a few days ago, to teach a lesson about biotechnology. They did this under the auspices of a campaign of the "Animal Awake Foundation" in which filmstar Georgina Verbaan, actress/presenter Sanne Wallis de Vries, Quote journalist Jort Kelder en parliamentarians Diederik Samson (Labour Party), Boris van der Ham (Progessive Liberals) en Arie van den Brand (Green left) also participated.
Meanwhile, a majority of the Dutch parliament has expressed the wish to treat violence by animal rights activists legally as "terrorism". Since 1999, about 300 crimes occurred which are directly attributable to animal rights activists (Trouw, 2 October, front page). Green Left Party parliamentarian Van den Brand said "I get the shivers when I hear that [activists] have threatened human lives and even attacked farmers' children. I again against keeping furry animals, but the crimes of animal rights activists I find abhorrent. It threatens civil society." J.
