Ivone Dias Lourenço
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3 April 1937
Ivone Dias Lourenço | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Ivone Conceição Dias Lourenço 3 April 1937 |
| Died | 24 January 2008 (Aged 70) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Known for | Opponent of authoritarian Estado Novo Government; Political prisoner |
Ivone Dias Lourenço was a Portuguese communist and an opponent of the Estado Novo regime in Portugal. She spent almost seven years as a political prisoner. A report of her imprisonment in a British newspaper led to her being indirectly connected with the foundation of the human rights organization Amnesty International.[1]
Ivone Conceição Dias Lourenço was born on 3 April 1937 in Vila Franca de Xira, just to the north of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. She was the daughter of two clandestine members of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), António Dias Lourenço da Silva and Casimira da Conceição Silva, which meant changing homes often and sometimes being left with family friends so that she could go to school. At the age of seven she went to live with the publisher, Francisco Lyon de Castro, and from that time she no longer lived with her parents, although she maintained sporadic contact. In 1946, during the 4th illegal Congress of the PCP, at the age of nine, she was explained away as the "daughter" of the "maid" during the meeting, with instructions to stay in the garden of the building where it was being held and warn the participants of anything unusual. Her parents were both arrested in December 1949. In 1954 her father was the first communist to escape from Peniche Fortress, which was being used by the Estado Novo as a political prison.[2][3][4]
