I think it can be quite difficult for those of us who've never lived under an authoritarian government to understand what that's like. We can talk about the sense of control and limitations that are all-pervasive in the victim societies. We can talk about how the average citizen must always watch she says and does lest she fall in the regimes crosshairs. But in my humble opinion, this won't give the outsider a proper glimpse of what these oppressive systems of government are actually like.
Instead, I want to discuss a specific tactic that has been used by both the Syrian and Bahraini regimes as their populations have risen up against the old order. This tactic doesn't directly target said populations. Instead it goes after a group of people whose safety, especially in times of extreme violence, should be sacrosanct: doctors and nurses.