Czech police stop numbering refugees’ arms

Czech police say they have stopped marking the hands of detained refugees with numbers after sparking an uproar among human rights groups, lawyers and media organizations who chafed at the similarity to Nazi practices.

Officers will from now on use “special wrist bands containing identification data,” Czech police say in a statement on their website.

“The police are sensitive to criticism that has appeared in the media.”

Police used markers on Tuesday to write numbers on the hands of 214 refugees, mostly Syrians, detained in the southeast of the country on trains arriving from Austria and Hungary.

Interior ministry spokeswoman Lucie Novakova tells AFP the move was introduced “to prevent the children from getting lost” and keep families together.

But the measure raised eyebrows as it recalls Nazi Germany’s practice of marking the arms of death camp prisoners with numbers.

Other similarities between the refugee crisis and Nazi-era practices have also raised hackles including putting people on trains without telling them their destination.

— AFP

Ok not good. A lack of transparency when it comes to train destinations will always rub too raw, given Europe's past https://t.co/ISlpTZrajG

— Camilla Schick (@CamJourno) September 3, 2015