SECRET POLICE Definition & Meaning

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secret police

noun

a police force that functions as the enforcement arm of a government's political policies and whose activities, which often include surveillance, intimidation, and physical violence as a means of suppressing dissent, are usually concealed from the public.

secret police

noun

a police force that operates relatively secretly to check subversion or political dissent

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of secret police¹

First recorded in 1920–25

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

We had to operate carefully, because the country is riddled with informers and secret police who spy on their own people for the ruling military junta.

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“I’m Still Here” travels us to groovy 1970s Rio de Janeiro to befriend a wealthy, loving family who throw their mansion’s doors open for everyone, until the new regime’s secret police barge inside.

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The secret police had picked him up because he had gone to a pro-democracy demonstration.

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A Manhattan resident has pleaded guilty to helping establish a secret police station in New York City on behalf of the Chinese government.

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An American citizen has pleaded guilty to helping run what has been described as the first known secret police station in the US on behalf of the Chinese government.

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