VIENNA, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- The Austrian transport minister said he wants to amend the Motor Vehicle Act to ban license plates with coded Nazi messages.
Alois Stoger, the country's transport minister and a member of the Social Democrat Party, said Monday he wants to add Nazi and neo-Nazi-related codes and symbols to the list of banned license plates, which currently covers "ridiculous or offensive" number and letter combinations.
The minister said some license plates have been found to contain Nazi messages using substitution codes such as "18" for the initials of Adolf Hitler and "88" to symbolize the Nazi greeting "Heil Hitler."
He said the new regulations, which would take effect during the summer, would also ban "SS" and "NSDAP," which stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
"The far-right scene keeps developing new codes," ministry spokeswoman Andrea Heigl said. "The legislative branch must watch out for these trends."
