This whole thing feels reminiscent of the Maoist Hundred Flowers campaign, in so far as we are in the lead up to a campaign of severe repression on all those who have been outspoken against the administration.

To settle ideological problems, one must act through the democratic methods of discussion, criticism, persuasion, and appropriate education.” But we must remember the—incidentally quite remarkable—method of the “Hundred Flowers.” As in Nazi Germany in 1943,° there was a period of apparent liberalism when expressions of all sort of criticism, deviationism, idealistic and religious inclinations, and so on, were tolerated, authorized, even encouraged. Then, after all opponents had spoken, the wave of repression hit them: arrests, jail sentences, and, above all, political re-education took place. The purpose of the “Hundred Flowers Campaign” was to make opponents come out in the open so they could be arrested and eliminated.

https://archive.org/details/jacques-ellul-propaganda