What are some problems faced in a non-democratic country?

The
problems faced by citizens of a
non-democratic country are considerable, and sometimes
fatal. 

"Non-democratic," by definition, implies an autocratic or

dictatorial form of government, such as existed in the Soviet Union and across Eastern
Europe
during the Cold War, and in countries like North Korea, Venezuela and
Cuba today. (For purposes
of discussion, I'll omit war-torn quasi- or
non-democratic governments in Iraq, Syria and
Afghanistan.) In countries
ruled by dictators, either a political party like the Communist Party
of
China or by individuals like the late Fidel Castro in Cuba or the ruling Kim family in
North
Korea, the people can either submit to all forms of oppression, or
suffer the consequences of
dissidencereal or perceivedby being thrown into
brutal prison camps and tortured and starved to
death, or by being summarily
executed with a bullet to the back of the head.

Dictatorships deny their citizens the fundamental freedoms Americans and others
in
democratic countries take for granted, such as the freedoms of speech,
assembly, and religion.
They deny their citizens due process of law, and
provide extremely limited opportunities for
professional careers. In some
non-democratic countries, like Chile under the late Augusto
Pinoche and,
since the late 1970s, China, there is a large measure of economic freedom

(although, in China, most major corporations are owned by the state and, in effect, by
the
Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army). In most
non-democratic countries,
however, the government maintains strict controls
on the economy, and many people spend their
lives essentially slaving away in
government-controlled factories, working for minimal wages and
little or no
benefits.

Another problem of non-democratic countries is
the
prevalence of corruption. Although present in democracies, dictatorships
virtually always
exhibit extraordinarily high levels of official corruption.
Bribes for basic services are a way
of life, and judicial systems are
similarly corrupt, with bribes needed to ensure a favorable
outcome. Police
are routinely bribed and many such police departments engage in criminal
conduct
themselves, such as extortion of businesses and individuals in order
to for the latter to be
"free" to operate. 

Finally, as
bad as the environment in many
democracies has become, the situations in
dictatorships are even worsemuch worse. Environmental
degradation associated
with the nuclear weapons complex in the United States was revealed, after
the
Cold War, as far worse than many understood. In Russia and the former Soviet republics,
the
conditions were beyond imagination. As badly as manufacturing plants in
America polluted
waterways, the situation in countries like Russia and China
is far worse, because there has been
little or no freedom to protest those
conditions, as the media are controlled by the governments
and the freedom to
protest is strongly denied. Whistle-blowers and human rights activists

regularly risk their lives in such countries, not just their jobs. Investigative
journalists in
democratic countries may, at worst, be jailed for their
refusal to disclose their sources of
classified information, and such cases
are very rare (most prominent examples in the U.S.
occurred during the Obama
Administration). In Russia, one of the deadliest professions is that
of
investigative journalist. Russian President Vladimir Putin's enemies in the press
and
elsewhere have a tendency to end up dead.

href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression">https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-re...