Police state

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the phrase 'police state' back to 1851, when it was used in reference to the use of a national police force to maintain order in Austria. The German term Polizeistaat came into English usage in the 1930s with reference to totalitarian governments that had begun to emerge in Europe. Because there are different political perspectives as to what an appropriate balance is between individual freedom and national security, there are no objective standards defining a police state. This concept can be viewed as a balance or scale. Along this spectrum, any law that has the effect of removing liberty is seen as moving towards a police state while any law that limits government oversight of the populace is seen as moving towards a free state. An electronic police state is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens. Henry VIII's Tudor England operated as a police state. The Oprichnina established by Ivan IV within the Tsardom of Russia in 1565 functioned as a police state, featuring persecutions and autocratic rule. The Soviet Union and its satellite states, including East Germany and other members of the Soviet bloc, had extensive and repressive police and intelligence services (such as the KGB). Approximately 2.5% of the East German adult population served as informants for the Stasi, roughly one agent or informer for every 6.5 citizens. The People's Republic of China is the biggest and most recognized police state, having a massive surveillance system, censorship, no freedom of speech, a one-party system, and the world's first Social Credit System. They are also known for human rights abuses, such as the Maoist era and the Xinjiang re-education camps. In Iran, during the reign of the Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi, from 1925 to 1941, there was an increased police presence who arrested and tortured many people who were against his rule. Police presence and surveillance increased even more under the rule of Reza Shah's son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from 1941 to 1979, with the creation of the SAVAK secret police. They were seen positioned on every street corner and were fiercely loyal to the Shah's rule and arrested and tortured many people; this reign also saw a sharp increase in political prisoners. Public anger and mass uprisings against the Shah led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which resulted in the overthrow of the Shah's reign and thus the abolishing of the Iranian monarchy and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ending the over-2,500-year history of the monarchy. Police presence once again increased and worsened drastically with the creation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular the morality police, the Basij militia, who forcefully uphold Islamic law on civilians. 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. In addition to the SS and the Gestapo, the Nazi police state used the judiciary to assert control over the population from the 1930s until the end of the war in 1945.