Secret police (or political police) are police, intelligence or security agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, ideological or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of police states governed by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.Juan José Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Lynne Rienner, 2000), p. 65. They protect the political power of a dictator or regime and often operate outside the law to repress dissidents and weaken political opposition, frequently using violence. They may enjoy legal sanction to hold and charge suspects without ever identifying their organization.
History
Africa Egypt Egypt is home to Africa and the Middle East's first internal security service: the State Security Investigations Service. Initially it was formed during the British occupation of Egypt as the Intelligence wing of the regular police. After the 1952 coup, the State Security apparatus was reformed and reorganized to suit the security concerns of the new socialist regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The SSIS was made a separate branch of the Ministry of Interior and separated from the regular police command. During the Nasser era, It was intensively trained by the Soviet KGB on coercive interrogation techniques, mass surveillance, public intimidation and political suppression. The SSIS was responsible for suppressing opposition groups to Nasser and his successors (Sadat and Mubarak).
Torture was a systematic practice by that repressive apparatus. During the war on terror, the SSIS received suspected terrorists that were sent to Egypt from the United States and interrogated them using torture. After the 2011 revolution, demonstrators demanded that the service be dissolved and several buildings (including the headquarters in Nasr City) were stormed by protesters who gathered evidence of torture tools, secret cells and documents showing surveillance on citizens. On March 15 2011, Egypt's Minister of Interior announced the dissolution of the State Security and declared the new National Security Agency would replace it and be responsible for its internal security and counter-terrorist duties.
Ethiopia From 1974 to 1987, Ethiopia was ruled by a communist military junta known as the Derg (in 1987 the country formally reformed into a presidential republic, but the same people remained in power until May 1991). The Derg built a police state with a brutal military government. The brutality of its regime was particularly evident in the 1976-1978, during military campaign, called Red Terror, against perceived opponents. To exercise total control over the country, the Derg needed a secret police. And it formed one in August 1978: it became known as the Central Revolutionary Investigation Department (CRID). CRID was responsible for suppressing dissent and identifying targets for state repression in Ethiopia. The department also has been monitoring opposition in government-controlled areas and regime dissidents. CRID is considered to be the most advanced institution of violence in Derg's Ethiopia.
Uganda In Uganda, the State Research Bureau (SRB) was a secret police organisation for President Idi Amin. The Bureau tortured many Ugandans, operating on behalf of a regime responsible for more than five hundred thousand violent deaths. The SRB attempted to infiltrate every area of Ugandan life.
Zimbabwe In Zimbabwe, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) was the secret police of President Robert Mugabe who is responsible for detaining, torturing, mass beating, raping and starving thousands of civilians on the orders of Mugabe.
Asia China In East Asia, the Embroidered Uniform Guard () of the Ming dynasty was founded in the 1360s by the Hongwu Emperor and served as the dynasty's secret police until the collapse of Ming rule in 1644. Originally, their main functions were to serve as the emperor's bodyguard and to spy on his subjects and report any plots of rebellion or regicide directly to the emperor. Over time, the organization took on law enforcement and judicial functions and grew to be immensely powerful, with the power to overrule ordinary judicial rulings and to investigate, interrogate, and punish anyone, including members of the imperial family. In 1420, a second secret police organization run by eunuchs, known as the Eastern Depot (), was formed to suppress suspected political opposition to the usurpation of the throne by the Yongle Emperor. Combined, these two organizations made the Ming dynasty one of the world's first police states.
The Ministry of State Security () in modern China controls a network of provincial and local State Security Bureaus, integrated with local Public Security Bureaus which make up part of the policing system of China. The MSS has its own branch of the People's Police, known as the State Security Police, with officers which have the dual tasks of law enforcement and repressing political dissent. State security bureaus and public security bureaus are functionally co-located within the same buildings as each other. 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.
Hong Kong
In British Hong Kong, the Special Branch was established in 1934 originally as an anti-communist squad under MI5 with assistance from MI6. 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.
The National Security Department in the current HKSAR is a secret police agency created after the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law. The NSD has accused and arrested dissenting voices in Hong Kong for "endangering" the national security, including pro-democracy politicians, protestors, and journalists. Some websites were also reportedly banned by the department, including Hong Kong Watch.
Iraq In the Middle East, located in Baghdad. Shurta was one of the most powerful intelligence and secret police organizations of the Abbasid era which was led by the Abbasids in the 8th and 9th centuries during the Golden Age of Islam.
Japan In Japan, the Kempeitai existed from 1881 to 1945 and were described as secret police by the Australian War Memorial. It had an equivalent branch in the Imperial Japanese Navy known as the Tokkeitai. However, their civilian counterpart known as the Tokkō was formed in 1911. Its task consisted of controlling political groups and ideologies in Imperial Japan, resembling closer the other secret police agencies of the time period. For this it earned the nickname "the Thought Police".W.G. Beasley, The Rise of Modern Japan, p. 184, .Edwin P. Hoyt, Japan's War, p. 113. .
South Korea The Korean Central Intelligence Agency or KCIA is a secret police agency which acted extra-judicially and was involved in such activities as kidnapping a presidential candidate and the assassination of Park Chung-hee, among other things.
Syria The General Intelligence Directorate or the GID was the secret police organization of the Assad regime which ruled Ba'athist Syria that repressed political dissidence and aided in the hunting for anti-Assad rebels until it was dissolved in December 2024 during the 2024 Syrian Rebel Offensives against Syrian Government forces. It culminated in the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad when he was forced to flee to Russia when Damascus was encircled by rebel forces.
Taiwan In Taiwan, the National Security Bureau, established in 1954, was the regime's main intelligence agency. 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 agency was established at the end of World War II and operated throughout the Cold War. It was disbanded on 1 August 1992. It was responsible for suppressing activities viewed as promoting democracy and Taiwan independence.
Europe
The institutionalisation of state secret security services began in the 16th century with greater professionalisation, bureaucratisation and specialisation of state security, as intensified competition between states drove governments to maximise their control of resources. The Inquisition served as a model for many such state agencies.
The French revolutionary Minister of Police Joseph Fouché devised a system of spying on the whole of society, which became emulated all over Europe by secret police or political police.
Secret police organizations originated in 18th-century Europe after the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna. Such operations were established in an effort to detect any possible conspiracies or revolutionary subversion. 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."Robert Justin Goldstein, Political Repression in 19th Century Europe (1983; Routledge 2013 ed.) The Geheime Staatspolizei of Austria and the Geheimpolizei of Prussia were particularly notorious during this period. After 1860, the use of secret police declined due to increasing liberalization, except in autocratic regimes such as Tsarist Russia.
Germany In Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, the Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police, Gestapo) and Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police, GFP) were a secret police organization used to identify and eliminate opposition, including suspected organized resistance. Its claimed main duty, according to a 1936 law, was "to investigate and suppress all anti-State tendencies". One method used to spy on citizens was to intercept letters or telephone calls. They encouraged ordinary Germans to inform on each other. As part of the Reich Security Main Office, it was also a key organizer of the Holocaust. Although the Gestapo had a relatively small number of personnel (32,000 in 1944), "it maximized these small resources through informants and a large number of denunciations from the local population".Gestapo , Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
After the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, Germany was split into West and East Germany. East Germany became a socialist state and was ruled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which was closely aligned with the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Its secret police organization, the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatsicherheit), commonly referred to as the Stasi, made use of an extensive network of civilian informers.Gary Bruce, The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 81-83. From the 1970s, the main form of political, cultural and religious repression practiced by the Stasi was a form of silent repression called Zersetzung ("Decomposition"). 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. Directed-energy weapons are considered by some survivors and analysts to have also been used as a constituent part of Zersetzung methods, although this is not definitely proven.
Hungary 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". The same building was used by the State Protection Authority (or ÁVH) secret police. The Soviet-aligned ÁVH moved into the former fascist police headquarters and used it to torture and execute state opponents.
Italy