Authoritarian governments work by gathering the elites in a country and forming a system that benefits them at the expense of the masses.
Authoritarian governments are systems that depend on the support of those elites who have sufficient power and resources to benefit from the arrangement. They consider the rest of the population to be a resource to fuel their system. Their system needs labors to produce their products, consumers to purchase those products, soldiers to fight it’s wars, police to enforce it’s policies, and tax payers to line it’s pockets.
Members of authoritarian systems are willing to violate the rights of the masses in order to maintain their power and position. The system allows them to take more than their share by exploiting those who are powerless to defend themselves.
Widespread human rights violations are a feature of an authoritarian system, and arguably necessary for it to survive. Because honoring human rights of the masses takes resources out of their pocket. To implement full human rights will generally lead to the demise of the authoritarian system because that would allow the exploited to organize and defend themselves.
The purpose of an authoritarian government is to benefit the elites who support it. The most notorious example is Nazi Germany. We can see some of the most flagrant current examples of this in Russia and North Korea. And also mainland China. Their systems are in direct contrast to the western countries, who they shield their populations against accurate knowledge of for fear of their own demise.
Accurate information is the lifeblood of democracies but a death blow to autocracies. Indoctrination, propaganda, and human rights abuses are necessary tools for maintaining authoritarian governments.