File:Demonstranten in Amsterdam tegen Portugees optreden in Angola, Bestanddeelnr 915-3366.jpg]]
File:Baner NPD.JPG" banner in Ukraine]]
Early forms of police states can be found in ancient China. 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. During this reign of terror, ordinary people did not dare to speak to each other on the street, and only made eye contacts with friends as a greeting, hence known as '道路以目'. Subsequently, during the short-lived Qin Dynasty, the police state became far more wide-reaching than its predecessors. In addition to strict censorship and the burning of all political and philosophical books, the state implemented strict control over its population by using collective executions and by disarming the population. Residents were grouped into units of 10 households, with weapons being strictly prohibited, and only one kitchen knife was allowed for 10 households. Spying and snitching was in common place, and failure to report any anti-regime activities was treated the same as if the person participated in it. If one person committed any crime against the regime, all 10 households would be executed.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}
Some have characterised the rule of King Henry VIII during the Tudor period as a police state.[{{cite news |title=Henry VIII: Henry the horrible |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/henry-viii-henry-the-horrible-90938.html |work=The Independent |date=12 October 2003}}][{{cite news |title=Human truth in the Tudor police state |url=https://www.ft.com/content/d86abec2-4f0f-11db-b600-0000779e2340 |work=Financial Times |date=28 September 2006}}] 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.[{{cite book|last1=Gella|first1=Aleksander|title=Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe: Poland and Her Southern Neighbors|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8keIXDyF_EoC|publisher=SUNY Press|date=1989|page=217|isbn=9780887068331|access-date=20 August 2016|quote=Oprichnina was originally a band of faithful servants organized by Ivan IV into a police force; they were used by the tsar to crush not only all boyars (Russian nobility) under suspicion, but also the Russian princes [...]. Oprichnina enabled the tsars to build the first police state in modem history.}}][{{cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=Colin|author-link1=Colin Wilson|title=Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs|url=https://archive.org/details/rasputinfallofro00wils|url-access=registration|date=1964|page=[https://archive.org/details/rasputinfallofro00wils/page/60 60]|publisher=New York, Farrar, Straus|access-date=20 August 2016|quote=[Ivan IV] established a political security force to run the Oprichina[sic], whose task was to spy on his enemies and destroy them; hence Ivan may be regarded as the inventor of the police state.}}]
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.[{{cite web | url= http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007675 | title= SS Police State | publisher= U.S. Holocaust Museum | access-date= 22 March 2014}}]
During the period of apartheid, South Africa maintained police-state attributes such as banning people and organizations, arresting political prisoners, maintaining segregated living communities and restricting movement and access.[{{cite book |last= Cooper |first= Frederick |title= Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FGDIT4WPTWEC&pg=PA149 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 10 October 2002 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9780521776004 |pages= 149–}}]
Augusto Pinochet's Chile operated as a police state,[{{cite book |last= Zwier |first= Paul J. |title= Principled Negotiation and Mediation in the International Arena: Talking with Evil |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=W57hIyEOSUsC&pg=PA235 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 22 April 2013 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9781107026872 |pages= 235–}}] exhibiting "repression of public liberties, the elimination of political exchange, limiting freedom of speech, abolishing the right to strike, freezing wages".[{{cite book |last= Casanova |first= Pablo González |title= Latin America Today |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=VNUNB2s5pcoC&pg=PA233 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 1 January 1993 |publisher=United Nations University Press |isbn= 9789280808193 |pages= 233–}}]
The Republic of Cuba under President (and later right-wing dictator) Fulgencio Batista was an authoritarian police state until his overthrow during the Cuban Revolution in 1959 with the rise to power of Fidel Castro and foundation of a Marxist-Leninist republic.[{{cite book |last1= Candelaria |first1= Cordelia |author-link=Cordelia Candelaria |last2= García |first2= Peter J. |last3= Aldama |first3= Arturo J. |title= Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=STjcB_f7CVcC&pg=PA120 |access-date= 27 March 2014 |year= 2004 |publisher= Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn= 9780313332104 |pages= 120–}}][{{cite book |last1= Bailey |first1= Helen Miller |last2= Cruz |first2= Frank H. |title= The Latin Americans: Past and Present |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YLsdAAAAMAAJ |access-date= 27 March 2014 |date= 1 January 1972 |publisher= Houghton Mifflin |isbn= 9780395133736}}][{{cite book |last= Novas |first= Himilce |title =Everything You Need to Know About Latino History: 2008 Edition |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=5uJAUbMcekAC&pg=PT225 |access-date= 27 March 2014 |date= 27 November 2007 |publisher= Penguin Group US |isbn= 9781101213537 |pages= 225–}}][Paul H. Lewis. Authoritarian regimes in Latin America.]
File:General Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000), the new president of Syria in November 1970.png constructed a coup-proof police state in Ba'athist Syria to consolidate his dictatorship during the 1970s]]
Following the failed July 1958 Haitian coup d'état attempt to overthrow the president, Haiti descended into an autocratic and despotic family dictatorship under the Haitian Vodou black nationalist François Duvalier (Papa Doc) and his National Unity Party. 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. In the 1964 Haitian constitutional referendum, he declared himself the president for life through a sham election. 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.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}
Ba'athist Syria under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was described{{By whom|date=June 2024}} 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. Alongside North Korea and Eritrea, it operated one of the strictest censorship machines that regulated the transfer of information. The Syrian security apparatus was established in the 1970s by Hafez al-Assad, who ran a military dictatorship with the Ba'ath party as its civilian cover to enforce the loyalty of Syrian populations to the Assad family. 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. Bashar and his family were overthrown in December 2024 during the Syrian Revolution with the Fall of the Assad regime and the Fall of Damascus which had forced Bashar to leave Syria for Russia and its capital Moscow for a political asylum.[{{Cite book |last=Bowen |first=Jeremy |title=The Arab Uprisings: The People Want the Fall of the Regime |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2013 |isbn=9781471129827 |pages=14, 15, 51, 118, 210–214, 336, 341 |chapter=Prologue: Before the Spring}}][{{cite web |title=RSF |url=https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2012 |access-date=7 May 2020 |website=RSF: Reporters Without Borders}}]
The region of modern-day Korea is claimed to have elements of a police state, from the Juche-style Silla kingdom,[{{cite book |last= Becker |first= Jasper |title= Rogue Regime : Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea |url= https://archive.org/details/rogueregimekimjo00beck |url-access= registration |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 1 May 2005 |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn= 9780198038108 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/rogueregimekimjo00beck/page/74 74]–}}] to the totalitarian police state imposed and maintained by the Kim family.[{{cite book |last= Hixson |first= Walter L. |title= The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=DNId6HxkzQwC&pg=PA179 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |year= 2008 |publisher= Yale University Press |isbn= 9780300150131 |pages= 179–}}] In 2006, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders ranked North Korea last or second last in their test of press freedom since the Press Freedom Index's introduction, stating that the ruling Kim family control all of the media.[{{Cite web |date=25 October 2006 |title=North Korea Rated World's Worst Violator of Press Freedom |url=http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2006/10/200610251320011xeneerg0.7926294.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140322183127/http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2006/10/200610251320011xeneerg0.7926294.html |archive-date=22 March 2014 |access-date=23 July 2008 |publisher=U.S. Department of State}}][{{Cite web |title=North Korea still one of the world's most repressive media environments |url=http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/north-korea |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130925032636/http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/north-korea |archive-date=September 25, 2013}}]
In response to government proposals to enact new security measures to curb protests, the AKP-led government of Turkey has been accused of turning Turkey into a police state.[{{cite news |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/critics-legislation-turkey-police-state/2495367.html |title=Critics: Proposed Legislation Turns Turkey Into Police State |publisher=VOA |access-date=7 June 2015}}] Since the 2013 removal of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi from office, the government of Egypt has carried out extensive efforts to suppress certain forms of Islamism and religious extremism (including the aforementioned Muslim Brotherhood),[{{Cite web|url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/egypt-politics-reforming-al-azhar|title = Egypt: The politics of reforming al-Azhar}}]{{better source needed|date=November 2023}} leading to accusations that it has effectively become a "revolutionary police state".[{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/opinion/egypts-new-police-state.html?_r=0 |title= Egypt's New Police State |work=The New York Times |date= 16 November 2014 |access-date= 20 May 2016|last1= Khorshid |first1= Sara }}][{{cite news |url= http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/egypt-revolutionary-police-state-103876?_r=0 |title= Egypt: The Revolutionary Police State |work= Politico |access-date= 20 May 2016}}]
The USSR was a police state.[{{Cite web |date=2024-12-28 |title=Chapter 12: The Soviet Union and the Cold War – Western Civilization: A Concise History |url=https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/worldhistory/chapter/chapter-12-the-soviet-union-and-the-cold-war/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241228042305/https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/worldhistory/chapter/chapter-12-the-soviet-union-and-the-cold-war/ |archive-date=December 28, 2024 |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=pressbooks.nscc.ca}}] Notable secret police forces in the former USSR were the Cheka, the NKVD, and the KGB. Tools of state control used by the Soviet Union include censorship, forced labour under the Gulag system of labour camps,[Gulag: A History, Anne Applebaum, 2003, {{ISBN|0767900561}}] and deportation and genocide of ethnic minorities such as in the Holodomor, NKVD Order No. 00485 against the Poles and De-Cossackization.[[https://www.loc.gov/item/96024752 "Revelations from the Russian Archives"] Library of Congress, 1997] Modern-day Russia[{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/historical-legacies-of-communism-in-russia-and-eastern-europe/from-police-state-to-police-state-legacies-and-law-enforcement-in-russia/61770339EC577592761107C9CE5371AD|title=Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe|first=Brian D.|last=Taylor|chapter=From Police State to Police State? Legacies and Law Enforcement in Russia |editor-first1=Mark|editor-last1=Beissinger|editor-first2=Stephen|editor-last2=Kotkin|date=18 May 2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=128–151|doi=10.1017/CBO9781107286191.007 |isbn=9781107054172 }}][{{Cite web|url=https://neweasterneurope.eu/2021/04/11/russias-police-state-showed-its-real-face-in-latest-protest-crackdown/|title=Russia's police state showed its real face in latest protest crackdown|date=11 April 2021|website=New Eastern Europe - A bimonthly news magazine dedicated to Central and Eastern European affairs}}] and Belarus are often described as police states.[{{Cite web|url=https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2020-11-16/belarus-a-police-state-action|title=Belarus: a police state in action|date=16 November 2020|website=OSW Centre for Eastern Studies}}][{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/world/europe/poland-belarus-border-crisis.html|title=Cold and Marooned in a Police State as Desperation Takes Hold|first1=Andrew|last1=Higgins|first2=Marc|last2=Santora|newspaper=The New York Times |date=16 November 2021}}]
The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos from the 1970s to early 1980s in the Philippines had many characteristics of a police state.[{{cite news |date=April 8, 1978 |title=Marcos Orders Crackdown On Critics of Martial Law - The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/04/09/marcos-orders-crackdown-on-critics-of-martial-law/15de84b2-1ebd-41bf-81d8-d9226e6b0764/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614155631/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/04/09/marcos-orders-crackdown-on-critics-of-martial-law/15de84b2-1ebd-41bf-81d8-d9226e6b0764/ |archive-date=June 14, 2020 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}][{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/19/magazine/reagan-and-the-philippines-setting-marcos-adrift.html|title = REAGAN AND THE PHILIPPINES: Setting Marcos Adrift|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 19 March 1989|last1 = Karnow|first1 = Stanley}}]
Hong Kong is perceived by some human rights organizations and press 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.[{{Cite web |last=Vines |first=Stephen |date=2021-07-03 |title=What's wrong with Hong Kong becoming a police state? |url=https://hongkongfp.com/2021/07/03/whats-wrong-with-hong-kong-becoming-a-police-state/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=Hong Kong Free Press HKFP |language=en-GB}}][{{Cite web |last=Welle (www.dw.com) |first=Deutsche |title=Amnesty: Hong Kong on course to becoming 'police state' {{!}} DW {{!}} 30.06.2021 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/amnesty-hong-kong-on-course-to-becoming-police-state/a-58104554 |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=DW.COM |language=en-GB}}][{{Cite news |last=Rogers |first=Benedict |date=2022-05-30 |title=Hong Kong's thuggish new leader epitomises its descent into a police state |language=en-GB |work=The Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/30/hong-kongs-thuggish-new-leader-epitomises-descent-police-state/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |issn=0307-1235}}][{{Cite web |date=2020-07-01 |title=Opinion: Make no mistake – this new security law turns Hong Kong into a Chinese police state |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hong-kong-china-security-law-protests-police-state-a9595696.html |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=The Independent |language=en}}][{{Cite web |title=Hong Kong's New Police State |url=https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/hong-kongs-new-police-state/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}]
The United States has been described as a police state since the election of President Donald Trump in 2024, particularly due to the mass deportations of activists—including green card holders such as Mahmoud Khalil—and immigrants without due process or transparency, alongside unidentified ICE detentions.[{{Cite news |last=Gessen |first=M. |author-link=Masha Gessen |date=2025-04-02 |title=Unmarked Vans. Secret Lists. Public Denunciations. Our Police State Has Arrived. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/opinion/trump-ice-immigrants.html |access-date= |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}]
