Editing Dictator (section)

==== Human rights abuses, war crimes and genocides ====
[[File:0718-Syria-Defectors-reemerge.jpg|thumb|Under Syrian dictator [[Bashar al-Assad]], [[Syrian military]] inflicted industrial-scale atrocities on civilian population during the [[Syrian civil war]]. These include hundreds of chemical attacks, such as the [[Ghouta chemical attack]], the largest chemical attack in the 21st century.<ref>{{cite news |author=S.B. |url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/08/syria-s-war |title=Syria's war: If this isn't a red line, what is? |newspaper=The Economist |date=21 August 2013 |access-date=15 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220174814/http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/08/syria-s-war |archive-date=20 December 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/syria-uprising/54759/syria-gas-attack-death-toll-1400-worst-halabja|title=Syria gas attack: death toll at 1,400 worst since Halabja|work=The Week|date=22 August 2013|access-date=24 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825115627/http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/syria-uprising/54759/syria-gas-attack-death-toll-1400-worst-halabja|archive-date=25 August 2013|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=D. Ward |first=Kenneth |date=September 2021 |title=Syria, Russia, and the Global Chemical Weapons Crisis |url=https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-09/features/syria-russia-global-chemical-weapons-crisis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708153519/https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-09/features/syria-russia-global-chemical-weapons-crisis |archive-date=8 July 2023 |website=Arms Control Association}}</ref>]]

Over time, dictators have been known to use tactics that violate human rights. For example, under the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, government policy was enforced by [[secret police]] and the [[Gulag]] system of prison labour camps. Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although significant numbers of political prisoners could be found in the camps at any one time. Data collected from Soviet archives gives the death toll from Gulags as 1,053,829.<ref>"Gulag Prisoner Population Statistics from 1934 to 1953." ''Wasatch.edu''. Wasatch, n.d. Web. 16 July 2016: "According to a 1993 study of Soviet archival data, a total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag from 1934 to 1953. However, taking into account that it was common practice to release prisoners who were either suffering from incurable diseases or on the point of death, the actual Gulag death toll was somewhat higher, amounting to 1,258,537 in 1934–53, or 1.6 million deaths during the whole period from 1929 to 1953.."</ref> The [[International Criminal Court]] issued an arrest warrant for [[Sudan]]'s military dictator [[Omar al-Bashir]] over alleged [[War in Darfur|war crimes]] in [[Darfur]].

Similar crimes were committed during [[Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party|Chairman]] [[Mao Zedong]]'s [[History of the People's Republic of China (1949–1976)|rule]] over the [[China|People's Republic of China]] during China's [[Cultural Revolution]], where Mao set out to purge dissidents, primarily through the use of youth groups strongly committed to [[Mao Zedong's cult of personality|his cult of personality]],<ref>{{cite web|date=18 August 2012|title=Remembering the dark days of China's Cultural Revolution|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1017272/remembering-dark-days-chinas-cultural-revolution|access-date=2021-07-15|website=South China Morning Post|language=en|archive-date=2018-06-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180609084717/http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1017272/remembering-dark-days-chinas-cultural-revolution|url-status=live}}</ref> and during [[Augusto Pinochet]]'s [[Government Junta of Chile (1973)|junta]] in [[Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)|Chile]].<ref>[[Pamela Constable]] and [[Arturo Valenzuela]], ''A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet,'' New York: W.W Norton & Company, 1993., p. 91</ref> Some dictators have been associated with [[genocide]] on certain races or groups; the most notable and wide-reaching example is [[the Holocaust]], [[Adolf Hitler]]'s genocide of eleven million people, of whom six million were Jews.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Holocaust|url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/holocaust|access-date=2021-07-15|website=The National WWII Museum {{!}} New Orleans|language=en|archive-date=2021-07-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715152635/https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/holocaust|url-status=live}}</ref> Later on in [[Democratic Kampuchea]], [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea|General Secretary]] [[Pol Pot]] and his policies killed an estimated 1.7&nbsp;million people (out of a population of 7 million) during his four-year dictatorship.<ref>"{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2097426_2097427_2097449,00.html |title=Top 15 Toppled Dictators |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=20 October 2011 |access-date=4 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130824000146/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2097426_2097427_2097449,00.html |archive-date=2013-08-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref> As a result, Pol Pot is sometimes described as "the [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] of Cambodia" and "a genocidal tyrant".<ref>William Branigin, [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-664002.html Architect of Genocide Was Unrepentant to the End] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130509211319/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-664002.html |date=2013-05-09 }} ''[[The Washington Post]]'', April 17, 1998</ref>