[ adj ] restrictive of action <adj.all> a repressive regimean overly strict and inhibiting discipline
Repressive \Re*press"ive\ (r?-pr?s"?v), a. [Cf. F. r['e]pressif. LL. repressivus.] Having power, or tending, to repress; as, repressive acts or measures. -- {Re*press"ive*ly}, adv.
In the past, the hated secret police, popularly known as "Stasi," used repressive measures to help ensure 40 years of Communist control.
And then down the road, we have enormous commonality of interest with China, but it will not be the same under a brutal and repressive regime.
Yet there are worries in Paris that the abrupt ouster of incumbent regimes _ even if corrupt or repressive _ might unleash ethnic strife and economic chaos without ensuring progress toward democracy.
Tuesday _ Riots break out in Tirana when Albanians seek sanctuary in foreign embassies in an apparent attempt to flee the repressive regime.
"The repressive measures undertaken by the Romanian government are totally unjustified and stand in stark contrast to the positive changes taking place elsewhere in Eastern Europe," he said.
"We must do everything possible to ensure that these brave students do not become pawns or bargaining chips in the administration's future dealings with that repressive regime," Kennedy said.
"These are repressive measures aimed at depriving the Palestinian people of knowing what is happening in the occupied territories," Hanna Siniora, editor of the pro-PLO daily Al Fajr, said at a news conference.
Now Nicaragua has a repressive regime, but it is plainly not a totalitarian state.
He said most of the Soviet prisons he visited, one the remote Perm 35 where several notable political prisoners once were held, remained repressive, restricting mail and family visits, but all had work programs.
But in the repressive atmosphere after the failed coup, an opposing faction in the military used the incident to build its own power, eventually establishing a militaristic regime that led Japan into World War II.
The pro-Western capitalist south is emerging as a major economic power, while the communist north is one of the world's most repressive and isolated nations.
Manuel Antonio Noriega's corrupt, repressive dictatorship and the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions have brought hope.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ The new military government announced the retirements or discharges of 29 officers in an effort to appease rebellious soldiers on a purge of repressive commanders.
A human rights group, describing Malawi as despotic and brutally repressive, said today that police there killed more than 20 protesters in a previously unreported massacre.
With Suharto, Quayle took up human rights issues, particularly allegations that Indonesia has more than 400 political prisoners and has used repressive tactics in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia in 1975.
He is as capable of ruthlessness, as heavily armed, and as brutally repressive as Saddam.
Since the repressive era of dictator Josef Stalin in the 1920s, Soviet worshipers have been required to register with the government and their church activities have been severely restricted.
Schifter, who heads the State Department's human rights bureau, said under questioning that his assessment, consistent with previous years, is that Cuba and North Korea are the world's most repressive states.
"We are calling for the strike to demand the freedom of all the leaders, students and workers detained by the repressive government," said Filemon Escobar, leader of the Bolivian Workers Central, the main union federation.
Honecker has denied all charges against him, including that he was personally responsible for the estimated 200 people who died trying to escape his repressive government.
The problem is that poverty and inequality cannot be removed simply by moving away from this repressive system to a non-racial democratic state.
Henri Namphy by rank-and-file soldiers of the Presidential Guard on Sept. 17, dozens of commanders with ties to the Duvalier regime were removed throughout Haiti and unpopular and repressive army officers and government officials dismissed.
The system will be geared to ease the transformation for countries that have seen "a landscape of moral destruction" under repressive regimes that were based on the "perversion of law," Bush said.
The danger is that Iraq may simply be left to stew, simultaneously terrorised by Mr Saddam's vicious repressive apparatus and starved by economic sanctions. It is not to be supposed that Mr Saddam would content himself with such malign neglect.
There's little chance that the Chinese government would change its repressive course because of them.
"That's a basic right recognized in all but the most backward or repressive nations," he said.
Labor leaders maintain that the government of President Roh Tae-woo is more repressive than past authoritarian regimes and has unfairly imprisoned more than 200 union activists since taking office in 1988, a figure which could not be verified.
The Dalai Lama said the Chinese had "become even more repressive" since the announcement in October that he was receiving the peace prize.
Mrs. Cornea, 60, is an instructor at Cluj University and endured years of hardship for publicly opposing the repressive policies of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was overthrown and executed in December.
Aristide, whose short reign was dogged by intrigue and conflict, fled to the US and was replaced by a repressive, violent junta headed by Gen Raoul Cedras.