Police state

There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance.

During the rule of King Li of Zhou in the 9th century BC, there was strict censorship, extensive state surveillance, and frequent executions of those who were perceived to be speaking against the regime.

[9][10] The Oprichnina established by Tsar Ivan IV within the Russian Tsardom in 1565 functioned as a predecessor to the modern police state, featuring persecutions and autocratic rule.

[11][12] Nazi Germany emerged from an originally democratic government, yet gradually exerted more and more repressive controls over its people in the lead-up to World War II.

[14] Augusto Pinochet's Chile operated as a police state,[15] exhibiting "repression of public liberties, the elimination of political exchange, limiting freedom of speech, abolishing the right to strike, freezing wages".

In 1959, Papa Doc ordered the creation of Tonton Macoutes, a paramilitary force unit whom he authorized to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses to suppress political opposition, including an unknown number of murders, public executions, rapes, disappearances of and attacks on dissidents; an unrestrained state terrorism.

After Duvalier's death in 1971, his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) succeeded him as the next president for life, continuing the regime until the popular uprising that had him overthrown in February 1986.

as the most "ruthless police state" in the Arab world; with a tight system of restrictions on the movement of civilians, independent journalists and other unauthorized individuals.

The dreaded Mukhabarat was given free hand to terrorise, torture or murder non-compliant civilians, while public activities of any organized opposition was curbed down with the raw firepower of the army.

to have implemented the tools of a police state after passing the National Security legislation in 2020, following repeated attempts by People's Republic of China to erode the rule of law in the former British colony.

George Orwell's novel 1984 describes Britain under the totalitarian Oceanian regime that continuously invokes (and helps to cause) a perpetual war.