Secret police
During the Nasser era, It was intensively trained by the Soviet KGB on coercive interrogation techniques, mass surveillance, public intimidation and political suppression.
After the 2011 revolution, demonstrators demanded that the service be dissolved and several buildings (including the headquarters in Nasr City) were stormed by protesters that gathered evidence of torture tools, secret cells and documents showing surveillance on citizens.
In 1420, a second secret police organization run by eunuchs, known as the Eastern Depot (東廠; Dōng Chǎng), was formed to suppress suspected political opposition to the usurpation of the throne by the Yongle Emperor.
[11] The MSS and the Ministry of Public Security control the overall national police network of China and the two agencies share resources and closely coordinate with each other.
[13] The branch later joined the Crime Department of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in 1946 and focused on preventing pro-KMT rightists and pro-CCP leftists from infiltrating the colony.
[15] The NSD has accused and arrested dissenting voices in Hong Kong for "endangering" the national security, including pro-democracy politicians, protestors, and journalists.
Its task consisted of controlling political groups and ideologies in Imperial Japan, resembling closer the other secret police agencies of the time period.
[23][24] The General Intelligence Directorate or the GID was the secret police organization of the Assad regime which ruled Syria that suppressed the people until it disbanded in December 2024 during the Syrian Revolution with a popular uprising against the dictator Bashar al-Assad when he fled to Russia that night.
The Taiwan Garrison Command acted as a secret police/national security body which existed as a branch of the Republic of China Armed Forces.
The peak of secret-police operations in most of Europe was 1815 to 1860, "when restrictions on voting, assembly, association, unions and the press were so severe in most European countries that opposition groups were forced into conspiratorial activities.
This involved the sustained use of covert psychological harassment methods against people, which were designed to cause mental and emotional health problems, and thereby debilitate them and cause them to become socially isolated.
[33] The House of Terror museum in Budapest displays the headquarters for the Arrow Cross Party, which killed hundreds of Jews in its basement, among other targets considered "enemies of the race-based state".
[38] Cheka, as an authorized secret police force under the rule of the Bolsheviks, suppressed political opponents during the Red Terror.
[40] In Cuba, President Fulgencio Batista's secret police, known as the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (or BRAC), suppressed political opponents such as the 26th of July Movement through methods including violent interrogations.
As recently as 1999, the Human Rights Watch reported that repression of dissidents was routine, albeit harsher after heightened periods of opposition activity.
[43] The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under the US State Department reported that Cuba's Ministry of the Interior utilizes a network of informants known as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (or CDR) to monitor government opponents.
[57][58] Among other targets, this included Martin Luther King Jr.[59] During the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship, between 1930 and 1946, the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS) was the government's secret police.
[61] The National Intelligence Directorate, or DINA, was a powerful secret police agency under the rule of Augusto Pinochet, which was charged with killings and torture related to repression of political opponents.
[63] During the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the Seguridad Nacional secret police investigated, arrested, tortured, and assassinated political opponents to the Venezuelan government.
[64][66] During the crisis in Venezuela and Venezuelan protests, Vice Presidents Tareck El Aissami and Delcy Rodríguez have been accused of using SEBIN to oppress political demonstrations.
[67] Ilan Berman and J. Michael Waller describe the secret police as central to totalitarian regimes and "an indispensable device for the consolidation of power, neutralization of the opposition, and construction of a single-party state".
[3] In addition to these activities, secret police may also be responsible for tasks not related to suppressing internal dissent, such as gathering foreign intelligence, engaging in counterintelligence, organizing border security, and guarding government buildings and officials.
[3] Arbitrary detention, abduction and forced disappearance, torture, and assassination are all tools wielded by secret police "to prevent, investigate, or punish (real or imagined) opposition.
"[68] Because secret police typically act with great discretionary powers "to decide what is a crime" and are a tool used to target political opponents, they operate outside the rule of law.
Political scientist Sheena Chestnut Greitens writes that: When it comes to their security forces, autocrats face a fundamental 'coercing dilemma' between empowerment and control.
