Estrela
ISCEF, in the Quelhas
In a prefabricated lecture theatre at this school, on 12 October 1972, a DGS agent shot dead the law student José António Ribeiro Santos, during a “meeting against repression”. Aurora Rodrigues was in the room.
Towards the end of Marcelo Caetano’s rule, the student struggle was at its height in Lisbon, and so was the repression: associations closed down, police charges at the Economics school and at the Técnico, the surveillance of the “gorillas”. For 12 October 1972 a “meeting against repression” was called in a prefabricated lecture theatre of the Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences (ISCEF), in the Quelhas.12
The students spotted a stranger who would not identify himself and whom they took for a DGS informer. The school called the political police, who sent two agents; they said they did not know the man, but wanted to take him away. A confrontation broke out, and the agent António Joaquim Gomes da Rocha opened fire: he killed José António Ribeiro Santos, aged 26, a fourth-year law student and an activist of the Federation of Marxist-Leninist Students, and wounded José Lamego.34
Aurora Rodrigues was in the room; after this she joined the MRPP, and she would be arrested and tortured in 1973.5 Isabel do Carmo was arrested by the DGS that year, in the wake of the killing.6 That night, three hundred students meeting at the Técnico decided to bring the university to a standstill; the funeral, two days later, left from Ribeiro Santos’s home and was one of the largest demonstrations of the final phase of the dictatorship.2
The agent was never tried: he was one of the PIDE/DGS men who escaped from Alcoentre prison on 29 June 1975.13
On the walks
From the archives
Aurora Rodrigues, in a testimony recorded by the Aljube Museum on 12 October 2016. The museum’s keywords include the student movement, the murder of Ribeiro Santos, the Movement for the Reorganisation of the Party of the Proletariat (MRPP), imprisonment, interrogation and torture in Caxias.
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
In other archives
These can only be viewed on each archive’s own website.
Where it is
Map showing where ISCEF, in the Quelhas is.
Dates
12 October 1972
Ribeiro Santos is shot dead by a DGS agent in a lecture theatre at the ISCEF.
14 October 1972
Ribeiro Santos’s funeral, attended by thousands of people.
14 November 1972
A meeting about the killing is called at the ISCEF (leaflet at the Casa Comum).
29 June 1975
The man who fired the shots escapes from Alcoentre prison with other PIDE/DGS men.
People connected with this place
Nearby
140 m · 5 min on foot
Emissora Nacional (Rua do Quelhas)
The regime’s official radio station was occupied in the early hours of 25 April 1974 by a small force from the Serra da Carregueira Firing Range, to serve as the MFA’s reserve broadcaster. It was fought over again on 11 March and 25 November 1975.
Revolution
270 m · 5 min on foot
Palacete de São Bento – residência oficial de Salazar
Today: Residência oficial do primeiro-ministro
O palacete nas traseiras do Parlamento que o Estado expropriou em 1937 para residência oficial do presidente do Conselho. Salazar viveu aqui de maio de 1938 a julho de 1970, o mês em que morreu. Hoje é a residência oficial do primeiro-ministro.
Repression
290 m · 5 min on foot
Palácio de São Bento
Today: Assembly of the Republic
The parliament where, in 1911, women were refused the vote and where, in 1975–76, twenty-seven women deputies helped to write the Constitution that prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex. Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen chaired the committee on the preamble here.
WomenRevolutionRepublic
450 m · 5 min on foot
Calçada Ribeiro Santos
Today: Calçada Ribeiro Santos (formerly Calçada de Santos)
José António Ribeiro Santos, the student killed by the DGS in 1972, lived here; from here his funeral set out, one of the largest demonstrations of the final phase of the dictatorship. The street has borne his name since the first street-naming edict after 25 April.
RepressionStudentsRevolution
Notes on the sources4
- The name of the alleged informer: “Fernando Lopes Manuel” (Aljube Museum biography) or “Vítor Manuel Lopes” (Aljube Museum text from 2020).
- Where Ribeiro Santos was hit: “in the back” (Memória Comum; Commemorative Commission) or “with two shots to the chest” (Toponímia de Lisboa).
- The date of death: 12 October 1972 in almost all sources; a Memória Comum list gives 13 October 1972.
- The exact location of the lecture theatre on the present-day campus, and whether there is a commemorative plaque at ISEG.
Do you know more, or do you have a document? Tell us.
Sources
- 1Assassinato de Ribeiro Santos. Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade (EGEAC) — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 2O assassinato de José Ribeiro Santos. Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 3José António Leitão Ribeiro Santos (biografia). Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 4José António Leitão Ribeiro Santos. Memória Comum – Memorial aos Presos e Perseguidos Políticos — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 5Aurora Rodrigues (testemunho e biografia). Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 6Isabel do Carmo (testemunho e biografia). Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 7Testemunhos da História no cinquentenário do assassinato de Ribeiro Santos. Seara Nova (10/8/2023) — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 8Notas biográficas de Ribeiro Santos. ribeirosantos.net — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 9A Calçada Ribeiro Santos no Dia do Estudante. Toponímia de Lisboa – CML (24/3/2014) — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 10Ribeiro Santos – panfleto convocando um encontro para 14 de novembro de 1972 no ISCEF (cota 05788.136). Casa Comum – Fundação Mário Soares e Maria Barroso — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 11Encerramento do Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade (EGEAC) — consulted on 2 October 2026
- 12Nominatim – OpenStreetMap (geocodificação). OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) — consulted on 2 October 2026
Coordinates: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim), consultado a 2 de outubro de 2026.