"Eberhart also had connections with his East German colleagues, who at that time were leading a growing resistance movement in Berlin, and their chief opponents were the East German Stasi. The Stasi, the secret police, were legendary for their data files. Their work was based on instilling fear, and they induced stunningly amazing numbers of East Germans into informing on their neighbors."
"Farisani ran afoul of the legendarily violent South African Police, and was not simply arrested for making statements about equality but imprisoned and subjected to torture not once or twice, but four times. US Lutheran leaders who knew of his plight raises a huge international stink, which ultimately led the South African regime to release him and expel him from the country, allowing him to be treated at the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis-St. Paul."
Recent events prompted direct comparisons between modern government enforcement and historic oppressive security forces. Experiences with East German Stasi surveillance illustrate how secret police built vast files and coerced roughly one in six citizens into informing on neighbors. A South African pastor, T. Simon Farisani, endured repeated imprisonment and torture under apartheid and was released only after international pressure; he prayed to die to avoid further torture. A report about Hannah Natanson evoked Stasi parallels, and a recent killing by ICE in Minneapolis generated fear among clergy and concerned observers.
Read at Emptywheel
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