Police state

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A police state is a state whose organs are not legally bound and which, contrary to the rule of law and constitutional ideas, do not effectively control each other because of a deficient separation of powers . Characteristic are a strong position of the police and other state security services (like the secret police ) as well as a repressive regulation of the political, economic and social life. Due to the lack of independence of the judiciary , citizens are inadequately protected against arbitrary and unlawful measures, their inviolable fundamental rights are not guaranteed. Totalitarian states are usually also police states .

Concept emergence

Etymologically, the term police is derived from the ancient Greek πολιτεία ( politeia ) or from polis (in German: "city"). It initially referred to the entire public administration . Since the Middle Ages was good Policey as an expression for a good administration used.

This meaning continued into the age of absolutism . According to the prevailing state model , the respective monarchical ruler had a position of power that was absolutely legitimized ; the limits of administrative action were only determined by the “welfare” of the subjects . The content of "welfare" or "good policemen" was defined by the authorities at their discretion.

Due to social change, especially after the Congress of Vienna , the police state became increasingly repressive in order to suppress the emerging liberal and democratic aspirations. The police state thus became an instrument of struggle against politically dissenters (in the absolutist state structure, an opposition was nothing more than a violation of the interests of the state and thus also of the interests of its subjects).

Since then, the police state has been defined as a state in which the police are omnipotent and the individual as good as powerless. This word meaning, which emphasizes the contrast to the rule of law , originated in the Biedermeier period.

In the period that followed, constitutional states emerged in which the police force (including administration) may only act on the basis of laws ( legal reservation ). As a result, the expression police in democratic countries was increasingly superseded in terms of language (health police, building police and immigration police were renamed to health department, building supervision authority and immigration office). The constant further development of police law , administrative law , criminal law and, ultimately, the constitution with basic rights leads to more legal certainty and also to the legalization of more and more areas of life.

Related terms

States with a tendency towards the surveillance of citizens by the state and its police force are called surveillance states. The logical further development of the surveillance state is the so-called prevention state . Here, the large number of specific information obtained from the monitoring of the individual citizens is used to make undesirable behavior of these citizens very difficult or, if possible, to prevent it from the outset. Means for this include entry bans , preventive evictions , bans on demonstrations , threats of punishment, convictions with long probation periods and the targeted monitoring of various population groups to avert danger .

history

Bavaria under Maximilian I.

A mainly church-oriented model of a police state existed with the church police regiment in Baiern under Maximilian I (1596-1651) . Advised by Jesuits , Maximilian I, as part of the Counter-Reformation, imposed the strictest sanctions up to the death penalty for violations of the commandments and rules of the Catholic Church established by the Council of Trent . He had secret spies ordered nationwide to monitor them .

Austria under Joseph II.

The classic model of the police state was created by Joseph II for the Habsburg Empire in the 18th century . In a meticulous system of regulations and prohibitions , he established the historically first surveillance state in the modern sense.

Prussia under Wilhelm I.

An example of the policey state, i.e. the police state in the original sense, in which the limits of administrative action were only determined by “welfare”, the content of which the authorities defined at their discretion, is (also) Prussia at the time of Wilhelm I. Die The maintenance of public order assigned to the police in § 10 II 17 ALR enabled them to intervene in all areas of public administration through a broad interpretation of the law . It was only when the Prussian Higher Administrative Court ruled on June 14, 1882 that the police force was in their place and the end of the absolutist police state was initiated .

France under Napoleon I.

Napoleon's France (1799-1814 / 15) was a police state with Joseph Fouche at the head of the secret police . Fouche acted at Napoleon's behest. During Napoleon's reign, Fouche canceled plays and banned newspapers . He maintained a dense network of informers in theaters, salons, restaurants and brothels. The press was controlled. In 1799, for example, there were around 60 newspapers in Paris. In 1814 there were only 4 left. The actions of the secret police were justified with the intention of preventing attacks and assassinations on Napoleon's person.

Development to an oppressive state

Soviet Union

From its foundation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991 - with relaxations during the term of office of Khrushchev ( de-Stalinization ) and Gorbachev ( perestroika ) - the Soviet Union was a strong to extremely pronounced police state under the rule of the Communist Party , in which hardly any area of ​​the daily life withdrawn from state surveillance, control and possible repression. Economic , travel , education , freedom of expression and other freedoms existed on paper of the constitution , but not in practice. Authorization from the authorities had to be obtained for almost every significant activity. The state authorities, primarily the secret and state security service ( Cheka , GPU , NKVD , later KGB ) closely monitored the public and private life of Soviet citizens; Politically opposition members ( dissidents ) faced state persecution and severe punishments, torture ( Lubyanka ), shooting or deportation to prison camps (“ Gulag ”).

These totalitarian control and coercive measures were most rigorous under Stalinism under Stalin . Under the rule of state and party leader Brezhnev we proceeded to dissidents in psychiatric hospitals ward . In the Khrushchev era and since the late 1980s, in the era of Gorbachev's government ( glasnost ), limited cultural, political and personal freedom was created. As early as the post-Stalin era, a dissident underground arose, which kept itself alive through forbidden writing and literature ( samizdat ) and political humor , among other things .

National Socialist Germany

When the Nazis in 1933 to power in Germany took over , they built gradually establish a totalitarian dictatorship . Based on two emergency ordinances of February 4 and 28, 1933 and the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933, they systematically eliminated all political opponents. The first victims were the communists and social democrats , whose parties were banned and whose members were arrested. Laws that were supposed to serve the “ protection of the people and the state ” severely restricted the basic constitutional rights . As a result, there were, for example, restrictions on the freedom of the press or a reduction in the right to freedom of expression . Arbitrary searches and confiscation of property were therefore permitted and occurred in large numbers.

In the next step, comprehensive monitoring was introduced. Block attendants checked households and people in order to report any activities or statements that did not correspond to National Socialist ideology. There were special courts built-tried political offenses immediately and spoke out for draconian punishments.

There was often a surge of suspicion and defamation among the people. Often this happened out of the fear of being seen as a sympathizer of an offender - or simply out of sheer malice. One was no longer safe from one's own relatives and even one's own children.

The Secret State Police also used a large number of informers to clear up hidden political movements. If such spies discovered activities that they regarded as hostile to the state, it was not long before the first arrests were carried out. Most of those affected were taken into protective custody , where they were mostly tortured , or sent to concentration camps . The arrests often took place at night, so people disappeared from day to day without causing a stir .

GDR

The German Democratic Republic before the fall of the Berlin Wall is often classified as a police state. The police apparatus was oversized by international standards. In the interior and exterior view, however, the Ministry of State Security , which is equipped with great power and operating with intelligence resources , a secret police based on the Soviet model, is cited as the central police state element. The MfS tried to monitor ( penetrate ) all areas of society in East Germany omnipresent and recorded numerous " hostile-negative persons " and their activities in countless files. The Stasi employed an estimated 100,000 unofficial staff in the 1980s . There were several thousand political prisoners in the GDR.

North Korea

North Korea, under the rule of the Neo-Stalinist Labor Party of Korea, is an extreme oppressive and police state and one of the countries where human rights are the least respected. Criticism of the leadership is severely punished. The media is fully controlled by the state and unauthorized gatherings are prohibited. North Koreans are not allowed to leave the country. The place of residence in the country is prescribed by the authorities.

Human rights groups report of prison and labor camps in which many political prisoners as well as people arrested for their beliefs alone are held. Even pregnant women are forced to work long and hard in these camps. The detainees are at the mercy of the guards and torture has been reported. Detainees died as a result of torture, starvation or were executed for minor offenses. Executions often take place in public. According to Western aid organizations, around 200,000 people are interned (as of 2005), of which around 10 to 20% per year as a result of miserable camp conditions or executions. A few witnesses (e.g. Kang Chol-hwan or Lee Soon-ok ) who managed to escape from the camps and from North Korea also report human experiments on prisoners with gases or viruses. Religious freedom in North Korea is also not guaranteed.

China

The People's Republic of China is an authoritarian and repressive police state led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The one-party system is enshrined in the constitution. The highest state organ is the National People's Congress (NPC), the parliament of the People's Republic of China. It elects the President, the State Council (the government of the People's Republic of China), the Supreme People's Court, the Central Military Commission and the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office, but only at the suggestion of the Communist Party, whose organization has around 78 million members and the state apparatus at all levels penetrates and can often hardly be separated from it.

The establishment of independent trade unions is prohibited, freedom of the press and freedom of expression are non-existent. Millions of dissidents are imprisoned in labor camps or psychiatric hospitals. The Internet is strictly censored, discussions taking place there are monitored, unpleasant people or regime critics arrested.

Tunisia

Political life in Tunisia was almost completely dominated by the RCD ( Rassemblement Constitutionnel Democratique ) until the revolution in Tunisia in 2010/2011 . For 25 years it was also the only party allowed, the chairman of which, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, was both head of government and president. He came to power in a coup in October 1987 , and in 2002 Ben Ali had the constitution amended so that his government could be extended beyond 2004. He was then confirmed in his office in elections which, in the opinion of numerous observers, do not meet the requirements of genuinely democratic elections. In the October 2004 election, according to official figures, he achieved 94.49%. In order to maintain the police-state structures, Ben Ali made use of voluntary informers from his own population. Critics faced prison sentences and torture (cf. Zouhair Yahyaoui ).

Human rights activists complained about the political repression in Tunisia. A July 2004 report by Human Rights Watch accused the government of inhuman treatment of numerous political prisoners. Forty of them, all of them Islamists, who have not committed any acts of violence, have been held in solitary confinement for years . Since 1991 the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH) was the only organization that was allowed to make a single prison visit. No independent human rights organization was granted access to the detention centers until the 2000s. Freedom of expression on the Internet and in other media was severely restricted and subject to state censorship . In the past there were more workers' strikes that were ended by force. There have also been repeated reports of police officers using violence against critics, opposition and human rights activists.

According to the 2007 annual report of the human rights organization Amnesty International , hundreds of opposition politicians had been detained and tortured without charge for years. Medical care for the inmates was also not guaranteed. The rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association remained severely restricted in the 2006 reporting year and the independence of the judiciary is not guaranteed, rather it continues to be an instrument of the ruling party.

Literature and film

One of the most famous literary treatises on the police state came from George Orwell in his novel 1984 . Orwell described a totalitarian regime that uses constant war between three major states as a pretext to keep the population under constant control. Terry Gilliam took on a similar subject in his film Brazil .

See also

literature

  • Brian Chapman: The Police State. Translated from the English by Barbara Ullmann. List, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-471-61560-1 .
  • Martin Kutscha: On the way to a new type of police state? In: Sheets for German and international politics. 2/2001, pp. 214-221.
  • Norman Paech: Rule of Law or Police State? In: Martin Kutscha, Norman Paech (ed.): In the state of "internal security". Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-87682-739-6 .
  • Fredrik Roggan: Legally to a police state. Pahl-Rugenstein, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-89144-278-5 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Police State  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janos Vehervary, Wolfgang Stangl: human rights and state power. WUV Universitätsverlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85114-487-2 , p. 49.
  2. ^ Karl Kroeschell: German legal history . Volume 3, 5th edition, Böhlau, 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-10706-2 , p. 81.
  3. ^ Felix Stieve: The church police regiment in Baiern under Maximilian I. Munich 1876. (Reprint: Verlag Nabu Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-147-52879-4 ).
  4. ^ Felix Stieve: The church police regiment in Baiern under Maximilian I. Munich 1876, p. 57.
  5. ↑ Janos Vehervary, Wolfgang Stangl: human rights and state power. WUV Universitätsverlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85114-487-2 , p. 49.
  6. ↑ Michael S. Voslensky : The Secret is revealed. Moscow archives tell. 1917-1991. Langen Müller, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7844-2536-4 .
  7. ^ Hans-Jürgen Lange: State, Democracy and Internal Security in Germany. Leske + Budrich Verlag, 2000, p. 89.
  8. ↑ Amnesty International 1977
  9. ↑ Amnesty Annual Report 1985
  10. ^ Reports from Amnesty International ( Memento of April 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ Report from Radio Bremen ( Memento of February 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Amnesty International. 2005 annual report
  13. ↑ Ben Ali 2004 ( Memento of October 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Die Welt: Inside Tunisia is a police state
  15. ↑ ASYL.net ( Memento from December 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ HRW.org
  17. ↑ Video report about the police state of Tunisia
  18. ^ Labornet
  19. ↑ Morgenpost.de
  20. ↑ amnesty.de