Aurora Rodrigues

The Estado Novo was a dictatorship that controlled Portugal from the 1930s until 1974.

Aurora Rosa Salvador Rodrigues (born 20 January 1952), is a retired Portuguese magistrate of the Public Prosecution Service.

She was a political prisoner arrested by the Policía Internacional y de Defensa del Estado (PIDE) during the Estado Novo, or "New State".

Aurora Rodrigues was born in Mértola, Portugal, in the Alentejo Region on 20 January 1952, near the Sao Domingos Mine.

At 17 years old, she enrolled in the School of Law at the University of Lisbon for the 1969–1970 academic year.

At the university, the Portuguese Communist Party approached Rodrigues about becoming a militant, but she joined the Portuguese Workers' Communist Party, Movimento Reorganizativo do Partido do Proletariado (MRPP), due to their stronger opposition to the Portuguese Colonial War.

Rodrigues became a MRPP party member after another law student, Ribeiro dos Santos, was shot by the PIDE.

On 3 May 1973, at 21 years old, Rodrigues was arrested by the PIDE when leaving the university after a student meeting.

She was kept in the Caxias prison for three months and was subjected to a routine of torture.

Rodrigues was deprived of sleep for 450 hours, drowned repeatedly, kept in stress positions, and beaten.

Rodrigues said that the memory of Ribeiro dos Santos, the support of her family, and the support of her classmate Ana Gomes were critical to her survival.

Rodrigues was released after three months on 28 July 1973.

She was never given a lawyer, sent to trial, or formally charged with any crime.

In 1974, she was arrested again.

After the 25 April Carnation Revolution, she returned to Caxias with Arnaldo Matos.

Both had been MRPP members.

They arrived at the party headquarters on 28 May 1975, and both were arrested by Comando Operacional do Continente (COPCON), the military organization led by Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho that controlled Portugal in the wake of the revolution.

Across Portugal, 432 MRPP activists were incarcerated.

In 1977, Rodrigues left the MRPP.

She became a magistrate of the Public Prosecution Service in Évora and Santarém, Portugal.

From 2009 to 2012 she was president of the Evorian section of the Sindicato de Fiscales (Prosecutors' Union).

In the 2011 book Gente Comum - Uma História na PIDE, Rodrigues describes her experience as a political prisoner.

She sought to counter the idea that political prisoners of Estado Novo were all well-known politicians.

Rodrigues describes the first 25 years of her life as an example of an ordinary citizen targeted by the regime.

Historian António Monteiro Cardoso and anthropologist Paula Godinho edited the book and provided notes for historical and social context.

The book was endorsed by the Sindicato de Magistrados del Ministerio Público and the Asociación de Mujeres Juristas.

It was presented by historian Fernando Rosas.