The machinery of repression

The stops

1. 1

   Stop 1: The prison of the “curros”

   Rua de Augusto Rosa, 42, 1100-059 Lisboa

   Today: Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom

   

   From 1928, the Aljube was a political prison — for men only. It was the prison for those on remand: here they waited for the investigation of their case, for trial or for deportation, and from here they were taken for interrogation at police headquarters.²

   From 1943, on the second floor, thirteen isolation cells about a metre wide — the “curros” (pens) — held prisoners in half-darkness, with no paper, no books, no watch, during the first months of incommunicado detention.³ Women arrested by the political police went to the Mónicas Prison, in Graça, and later to Caxias. Since 25 April 2015, the building has been the Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom.⁴

   What you can see today

   The building itself is the museum. The main door of the former prison is closed, but kept as a testimony of the prison.

   Mulheres e Resistência — documentário (versão com Língua Gestual Portuguesa)Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade · 16 October 2025 · 01:33:09

   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 31 August 1992 · 31 minEm Nome dos Amanhãs que Cantam – Parte IA programme by Diana Andringa on the political prisoners of the Estado Novo (“New State”), with footage of the Aljube, the PIDE headquarters, Caxias, Peniche and Tarrafal. Former prisoners describe their imprisonment, a former PIDE/DGS inspector justifies the police, and Fernando Rosas and Luandino Vieira speak.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 2720 m · 10 min on footDirections

2. 2

   Stop 2: The court that condemned

   Largo da Boa-Hora / Rua Nova do Almada, Chiado, 1249-099 Lisboa (OpenStreetMap: «Convento da Boa Hora», Largo da Boa-Hora, 15)

   Today: Former court, closed since 2009

   

   Political prisoners were tried in the Plenary Court, presided over by an appeal court judge appointed by the Minister of Justice; in Lisbon, it sat here.¹⁵ It was here, in 1960, that the communist activist Maria Alda Nogueira heard herself sentenced to eight years’ major imprisonment.⁶ Isabel Aboim Inglez was arrested in the courtroom itself, while giving evidence as a defence witness.⁷

   In the same building, in an ordinary court, the three authors of Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters) were tried behind closed doors for offending public morals. The verdict, set for 18 April 1974, was not read until 7 May — in freedom by then, and to acquit them.⁸

   What you can see today

   No confirmed marker of the political trials. The Memorial to Political Prisoners and the Politically Persecuted approved for the square in 2021 had not been built by August 2025.

   • 25 Oct 1973The trial of the Three Marias begins, behind closed doors
   • 7 May 1974As «Três Marias» são absolvidas

   Vidas Prisionáveis — Diana Andringa (testemunho completo)Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade · 4 February 2021 · 01:14:49

   Hemeroteca Municipal de Lisboa · Document · 25 October 1973«Novas Cartas Portuguesas» – Julgamento secretoA news item from the “Diário de Lisboa”: the judge declared closed the hearing in the trial of the authors and the publisher of “Novas Cartas Portuguesas” (“New Portuguese Letters”), which had begun that day at the Boa-Hora. Journalists and observers from the feminist movement and from PEN Club had to leave the courtroom.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 3280 m · 5 min on footDirections

3. 3

   Stop 3: The cells on Rua Capelo

   Rua Capelo, Chiado, 1200-087 Lisboa (número de polícia por confirmar)

   Today: The building of the former Civil Government

   

   Before the political police headquarters was fully up and running, in 1938, it was the PSP police stations that held prisoners kept incommunicado — “the real logistics of repression”, in the words of the Memória Comum project. The 1st Station was here, in the Lisbon Civil Government building. Its cells took in prisoners on the eve of their trials before the Special Military Court, which were often held in the building itself.⁹

   • 5 Dec 1932Creation of the Special Military Courts

   Memórias na Resistência — Helena Cabeçadas (testemunho completo)Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade · 21 June 2023 · 01:30:40

   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 4390 m · 5 min on footDirections

4. 4

   Stop 4: The political police headquarters

   Rua António Maria Cardoso, 22, Lisboa (código postal do troço: 1249-101, segundo o OpenStreetMap)

   Today: Residential apartment complex

   

   At No. 22 on this street stood the headquarters of the PVDE, later the PIDE and finally the DGS: the files, the informers, the interrogations.¹⁰ Interrogations took place on the third floor — beatings, sleep deprivation and the “estátua” (statue) torture, with squads of agents working in relays; against women, stripping and offences of a sexual nature were added.¹¹

   The factory worker Conceição Matos was brought here in April 1965, beaten for days and stripped in the interrogation room. “Anyone who looks at that case file knows I never talked to the police,” she said years later.¹²

   What you can see today

   A plaque put up by citizens in 1980 reads: “Here, on the afternoon of 25 April 1974, the PIDE opened fire on the people of Lisbon and killed: Fernando C. Gesteira, José J. Barneto, Fernando Barreiros dos Reis, José Guilherme R. Arruda. Tribute from a group of citizens – 25-4-1980”.¹⁸ Removed during the building works for the apartment complex, it was put back in 2009 in an inconspicuous corner. Lisbon City Council put up a plaque in 2010 and, in April 2024, a new one, with a code that leads to the biographies of the four dead on the Aljube Museum website.¹⁹

   • 21 Apr 1965Arrest and torture of Conceição Matos
   • 25 Apr 1974Disparos da PIDE/DGS matam quatro pessoas na Rua António Maria Cardoso

   Vidas Prisionáveis — Domingos Abrantes e Maria da Conceição Matos (testemunho completo)Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade · 6 February 2021 · 01:12:02

   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 26 April 1974 · 2 minPrisão de Agentes da PIDE-DGSThe PIDE/DGS headquarters on Rua António Maria Cardoso, surrounded by soldiers and members of the public. Two agents caught trying to escape are taken by the soldiers to the Carmo Barracks; the item has no sound.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 5360 m · 5 min on footDirections

5. 5

   Stop 5: The “blue pencil”

   Rua da Misericórdia, 125, 1.º, Lisboa (entrega de provas pelas traseiras: Rua das Gáveas, 90, 3.º)

   Today: A building on Rua da Misericórdia

   

   From 22 September 1969, press censorship worked from the first floor of No. 125 Rua da Misericórdia — the seventh address of a service that had been born in 1926 in the Carmo Barracks and never strayed far from the newsrooms. Newspapers sent in their page proofs and got them back stamped, cut with the “blue pencil”.¹³

   Many texts by women did not get past this sieve: Diana Andringa had an article on the war in Angola cut, and Novas Cartas Portuguesas was withdrawn from circulation shortly after it came out.¹⁴ Almost opposite, at No. 116, was the newspaper República. On the morning of 25 April 1974 its editor, Raul Rego, refused to send the proofs to the “Prior Examination”, and the paper came out with a line at the foot of the front page: “This newspaper has not been vetted by any Censorship Commission” (Este jornal não foi visado por qualquer Comissão de Censura).¹⁵

   • 26 Apr 1974Assalto popular à sede da censura
   RTP Arquivos · Audio · 25 April 1974 · 1 h 03 minGravação de telefonemas dos serviços da CensuraMore than an hour of phone calls between the Lisbon and Porto “Prior Examination” offices, with the cuts made to the news from 20 to 25 April 1974. The censors deal with reports on the taking of the Terreiro do Paço, of Rádio Clube and of the Emissora Nacional, and on the Carmo Barracks.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 6570 m · 10 min on footDirections

6. 6

   Stop 6: The propaganda palace

   Praça dos Restauradores, 25, Lisboa (fachada posterior na Calçada da Glória)

   Today: Palácio Foz: public services and the National Sports Museum

   

   In 1933 the regime created the National Propaganda Secretariat, headed by the journalist António Ferro; in 1940 the State bought this palace to serve as its headquarters.¹⁶ Censorship passed through here too: between 1947/48 and 1961 it worked in the building, with its entrance on Calçada da Glória.¹³

   And it was right next door, by the Elevador da Glória, that PIDE agents killed the worker David Almeida Reis, during the May Day demonstration on 1 May 1964.¹⁷

   • 25 Sep 1933Creation of the National Propaganda Secretariat
   • 1 May 1964Death of David Almeida Reis by the Elevador da Glória
   The story of the place See on the map