secret police

noun

Updated on: 16 May 2018

Definition of secret police

: a police organization operating for the most part in secrecy and especially for the political purposes of its government often with terroristic methods

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Recent Examples of secret police from the Web

During a subsequent trip to the United Arab Emirates, Fikre was forcibly taken from a home there on June 1, 2011, by Emirates secret police and placed in a windowless cell for 106 days.

— maxine bernstein, OregonLive.com, "Federal appeals court to hear Portlander's challenge of no-fly list," 9 May 2018
Eyes: Short for the Eyes of God, Eyes are Gilead's force of spies and secret police.

— refinery29.com, "The Handmaid's Tale Glossary You Need To Survive Gilead," 2 May 2018
In 1952, the Union reported that the former head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police, Lavrenti Beria, wanted the newspaper to negotiate his defection to the U.S.

— roger showley, sandiegouniontribune.com, ""A Faithful Mirror": The San Diego Union-Tribune's first 150 years," 15 Apr. 2018
In 1943, Goebbels triumphantly broadcast news of the Katyn Forest massacre, in the course of which the Soviet secret police killed more than twenty thousand Poles.

— naomi fry, The New Yorker, "How American Racism Influenced Hitler," 23 Apr. 2018
Alejandro Castro Espín, his son, runs counterintelligence for the Interior Ministry that controls the secret police.

— the editorial board, WSJ, "Cuba Gets a Castro Convertible," 22 Apr. 2018
Mr Morawiecki, then a teenager, was kidnapped by the secret police, beaten and told to dig his own grave, but refused to give up his father’s whereabouts.

— The Economist, "Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party is doing lasting damage," 21 Apr. 2018
In past assignments, I’ve been abducted in eastern Ukraine, dodged Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and was interrogated by the secret police in Egypt.

— NBC News, "A look behind the scenes of a documentary on white supremacists," 17 Apr. 2018
The best of all the excellent performances in The Death of Stalin is Simon Russell Beale’s Beria, the serial murderer and rapist who headed Stalin’s secret police from 1939 until his death.

— sophie pinkham, The New Republic, "The Provocative Brilliance of The Death of Stalin," 29 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'secret police.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.