Refugees Dragged Off Train By Czech Police And Marked With Identification Numbers On Their Forearms

Czech Police Write ID Numbers On Train Refugees In Disturbing Nazi Echo
Syrian and Afgan refugees shout slogans during a protest rally to demand to travel to Germany on September 2, 2015 outside the Keleti (East) railway station in Budapest. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / FERENC ISZA (Photo credit should read FERENC ISZA/AFP/Getty Images)
Syrian and Afgan refugees shout slogans during a protest rally to demand to travel to Germany on September 2, 2015 outside the Keleti (East) railway station in Budapest. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who are unable to board trains to western European countries after the main Budapest station was closed. AFP PHOTO / FERENC ISZA (Photo credit should read FERENC ISZA/AFP/Getty Images)
FERENC ISZA via Getty Images

Dealing with an influx of refugees is a highly sensitive issue. As such, it’s probably best not to drag 200 off a train bound for Germany, arrest them and then mark their forearms with identification numbers.

Yet that’s what Czech police started doing on Tuesday morning, according to local media, detaining refugees on train inbound from Austria and Hungary in the Czech region of Moravia.

Amid concern from the Czech government, police made the arrests despite the passengers having valid tickets to travel.

The refugees are currently in being held in police premises in several Moravian towns, however it's the pictures of guards branding women and children with pens, an echo of the region’s brutal Nazi past, that will cause disquiet around the world.

The governor of southern Moravia, Michal Hasek, told the Zpravy newspaper the actions were in preparation should the “wave of migrants increase.”

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