Central Revolutionary Investigation Department

The Central Revolutionary Investigation Department or CRID (Amharic: ማዕከላዊ አብዮታዊ ምርመራ መምሪያ)^{[1][2][3][4][5]} was the secret police and internal intelligence service in Ethiopia during the rule of the Derg, a communist military junta, and later in People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, from 1978 until 1991.

Ethiopian army soldiers rally in support of the Derg, many of them holding communist manifestos.

Central Revolutionary Investigation Department ማዕከላዊ አብዮታዊ ምርመራ መምሪያ
Agency overview
Formed	1978
Dissolved	1991
Jurisdictional structure
National agency	Ethiopia
Operations jurisdiction	Ethiopia
General nature	Secret police
Operational structure
Headquarters	Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The Derg seized power in Ethiopia in 1974 amid a general revolution against Emperor Haile Selassie. The military junta immediately began to purge the state of the emperor's supporters and political opponents and formed a new secret police and intelligence service (intelligence agency firstly named "Committee for peoples Security and Peace"). Soon, the Derg regime carried out a bloody military campaign to suppress its opponents, known as the Qey Shibir or Red Terror, which killed an estimated 980,000 people in less than two years. If Red Terror was stopped in 1978, however, repressions was not: in August of the same year CRID was founded.^[6] CRID was responsible for suppressing dissent and identifying targets for state repression in Ethiopia. Department also has been monitoring opposition in government-controlled areas and regime dissidents. It is considered to be the most advanced institution of violence in Derg's Ethiopia.^[6] CRID also known as the "third police station".

The CRID was disbanded in May-June 1991 following the fall of the Derg regime because of a series of offensives by a coalition of opposition forces.