Custom Number Plates: Why Germany has forbidden number plates starting with the initials “IS”

Number plates which could be seemingly referring ISIS group have been forbidden in Marburg in Germany. The number plate distributing authority in Marburg has ceased distribution of number plates starting with the initials “IS”, in seeming reference to the terrorist organisation. This also goes for custom number plates too.

City spokesperson Markus Morr recently stated, “after the Paris attacks in November last year, we chose to no longer issue this letter grouping.”

“About 215 cars in our broader region are still driving around with the shortening ‘IS’” he said.

Vehicle owners prepared to shell out the small fee for custom number plates in the city will also be requested to steer clear of these letters. Marburg records around 4,000 new cars every month.

“On the one hand this choice was made out of reverence for the losses in the terror outbreaks, but also since the town was accommodating around 4,000 migrants at the time, numerous amounts of them whom fled from ISIS too.”

German number plates generally begin with the letter abbreviation of the city the vehicle has been listed in, trailed by one or two-letter mixtures and several numbers after that.

This is not the only time in which a German city has stopped distributing provocative number plates though. The Bavarian city of Nurnberg in recent times forbade the combination “N-PD,” an abbreviation of Germany’s infamous far-right National Democratic Party. Meanwhile inhabitants who wish to use the abbreviation “N-SU”, of which were utilised by right-wing terror group National Socialist Underground, will have to apply for “exceptional authorisation with a precise reason in mind” according to a spokesman for Nurnberg’s regulatory agency.

So far here in the UK, no particular combinations that aren’t obviously rude, have been banned at all, and we hope it remains that way.

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