New Zealand rejects complaint against Aryan numberplate
The New Zealand Transport Agency has refused to withdraw the car numberplate ARYAN1.
Lisa Marie Thompson paid NZ$700 for the plate 4 years ago as a tribute to her boyfirend, Andrew Ryan. It has been on her Ford Falcon ever since.
According to the Dominion Post, a complainant wrote: “This is really offensive, for pretty obvious reasons. How can somebody even have a plate like this approved? I am baffled.”
The NZTA bans numberplates promoting mass murder, obscenities, threats against the police or drug use, but it will not act againt Ms Thompson, citing her right to express herself under the Bill of Rights Act.
The agency said: “On its own it is simply a name and I believe it would require some other words, actions or gestures to be inciting. NZTA finds racism and racist speech as abhorrent as all right-thinking New Zealanders [do], which is why this was not an easy decision to make. However, we consider that the original decision not to require the surrender of the plate was correct.”
Thompson insisted that she won’t sell the numberplate now that she has learned of its alternate meaning. She said “I’ll look it up in the dictionary and see what it says, but I’ve had it for years and I don’t see the problem with it.”
Other number plates which were deemed too offensive by the NZTA include DRGDLR, QUICKE, 18750 (American slang for police murder), 4QANC, 50KILA, H8ACC, HOBNGR, JAPSUX, KCUFME, MDAFKR, OLDKNT, PIZZDA, SIKCNT, TAMPON, TBAGGD and ZYKLON.
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September 1, 2010
Posted in: News
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