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Material from Police state was split to List of fictional police states on 13 September 2012‎. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted so long as the latter page exists. Please leave this template in place to link the article histories and preserve this attribution.

Deletion/restoration of maps

Someone please explain why "China" is not on this list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.183.170 (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

"Authoritarian regimes" shown on maps are clearly synonymous with "police states". Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:29, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

the term "police state" is widely known and free to use. if the researchers had intended their work to reflect "police state" they certainly could have actively used the term. they didnt. for us to assume "synonymous" would then render this page a POV fork of Authoritarianism and be evidence that this should be a redirect and not a stand alone article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:22, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

and you are going against the overwhelming consensus of just a few months ago . Please stop your nonsense. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Instead of deleting reliably sourced material that is clearly relevant to the article, why not supply reliably sourced alternative rankings that you feel are less biased? The Economist, Freedom House, etc. are clearly reliable sources, but this doesn't mean they don't have a world view. Low freedom ranking equals police state. What other possible definition could there be? Is it logically possible to have an unfree state that is not a police state? This is "Paris is the capital of France" obvious. Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is a diff of the most recent deletion of reliably sourced, relevant, NPOV material from the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Police_state&diff=601352639&oldid=601352523 Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

it is NOT appropriately sourced as everyone has been indicating. The sources do not discuss "Police state" when they have ample opportunity to do so if they wanted and felt it was appropriate to the context of their material. Taking content out of the specific context of the sources is not allowed. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Low freedom ranking equals police state. -- regardless of how many times you assert this, it remains your unsourced opinion. (And you haven't even stated how low, which you could if your sources supported you.) -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:23, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I suggest we try a Request for Comment WP:RFC on the "Politics, government, and law" issue area. Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:14, 26 March 2014 (UTC) Here is a possible description of the issue: The section "Rating systems", which includes the two maps to the far right on this version of the article https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Police_state&oldid=601352523 has been deleted repeatedly, the stated reason being that "police state" and "authoritarian regime" refer to two distinct and different things. Do you feel this section is relevant to the article "Police state", reliably sourced and neutral in point of view, or do you agree that it should be deleted because it doesn't belong in this article? Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:24, 26 March 2014 (UTC) The entire "Rating systems" section of the article Police state has been repeatedly deleted. It includes the text, references, and two maps which appear to the far right in this version of the article https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Police_state&oldid=601352523. Do you feel this section and these maps are relevant to the article, reliably sourced and neutral in point of view, or do you feel all this material should be deleted because it doesn't belong in the article? Ghostofnemo (talk) 09:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• oppose inclusion of those items - the creators of those lists and studies were very clear in what they were looking and what they were measuring and why they were looking at what they looked at. They were not looking at / measuring indications of "police state". for us to translate their work from their context into a context that is not what their work was about is a violation of WP:SYN. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
  • and commenters may wish to be aware that this was discussed at the No Original Research notice boards a few months ago. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:32, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. That section is not properly referenced. It cites four sources, three of which do not even mention "police state", while one just mentions Eritrea being a police state. Connecting those sources and their claims with the "police state" would be an original research, which is prohibited. To include the "rating systems" section, we need some sources about the rating of police states, which I do not see. Vanjagenije (talk) 11:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with the above editors that including this would constitute original research. AIRcorn (talk) 21:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment If multiple human rights organizations and publications are cited which label certain states as "unfree" or "authoritarian", how can it be original research? If this material is deleted, we have no objective basis whatsoever for the concept of "police state" - it becomes just an insult that is thrown around without any precise meaning. I'm not saying there is only one, objective yardstick, but at least this was a start. Ghostofnemo (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think I have made my case against Ghostofnemos repeated and inherent OR tendencies above. Nothing has changed since then. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. They are either fork of authoritarianism or WP:OR with WP:POV. "The Economist, Freedom House, etc. are clearly reliable sources", no they are not in this case. Both represent specific political positions. Sietecolores (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Another, sad Misplaced Pages fail. Ghostofnemo (talk) 01:00, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

No, this was a success ... material that did not refer to police states was correctly rejected as a source for statements about police states. To treat "police state" and "authoritarian regime" or "unfree state" as synonymous (they clearly are not; constitutional states can be authoritarian and unfree) on your say-so would have been a failure. -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 04:40, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Objective standards

I've flagged this unreferenced sentence in 'History of Usage' section of the article: "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." There are multiple organizations that do in fact rate countries on the basis of the amount of freedom their citizens/residents enjoy, for example, see List of freedom indices. While these rankings are somewhat subjective, they are intended to be based on objective criteria. There used to be information on these indices in the article, but it has all been deleted. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC) For example, Freedom House uses these criteria: "For each country and territory, Freedom in the World analyzes the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of the government, freedom of expression and of belief, associational and organizational rights, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights." https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world You could also use incarceration rates, number of people killed or injured by security personnel, number of people charged with ideological crimes, etc. Ghostofnemo (talk) 03:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is an example from an article by a former U.S. State Department employee: "... Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. Women must have the consent of a male guardian to enroll in college, look for a job or travel. They cannot swim in public or try on clothes when shopping. The Saudi government also routinely arrests people without judicial review, according to Human Rights Watch. Citizens can be executed for nonviolent drug crimes, often in public. Forty-eight people were beheaded in the first four months of 2018 alone. Saudi Arabia ranks just above North Korea on political rights, civil liberties and other measures of freedom, according to the democracy watchdog Freedom House. But its wealth, strategic Middle East location and petroleum exports keep the Saudis as a vital U.S. ally." https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabia-is-a-repressive-regime-and-so-are-a-lot-of-us-allies-105106 Ghostofnemo (talk) 05:29, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

China

As of 20/08/2021 the article contains the following sentence:

The People's Republic of China is a police state and has been turning Hong Kong in to one.

This is a clear violation of WP:RS. News outlets are not considered reliable sources for anything other than statements of fact. What's more; the opinion piece used as a citation makes no references, nor defines what a "police state" is. It simply cherry picks data such as "As of May 17, 2021, national security police have made 107 arrests under the law, with 57 prosecuted, among whom the majority have been denied bail" and presents it as if lawful arrests are somehow an attribute of a "police state", which again, is not defined anywhere.

I am therefore removing this statement along with the source given, and will continue to do so until the claim is supported by reliable, scholarly sources. WhiteNoise17 (talk) 07:37, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

References

1. Tin-bor Hui, Victoria. "Hong Kong's New Police State". thediplomat.com. The Diplomat.

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:51, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Afghanistan

The paragraph on Afghanistan is poorly written (in a way that makes it hard to understand exactly what is being said), unsourced, unlikely to be factual »most people disappear« and why would the Taliban special police themselves say that the taliban government commits various severe crimes? 2001:2042:7900:C180:6C8E:EB20:98E9:3682 (talk) 08:36, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

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