Criminal Case 141/53

Since 2000, Susana de Sousa Dias has been researching the history of Portugal’s dictatorship under António de Oliveira Salazar, using the regime’s own archives. In her documentary Criminal Case 141/53 two Portuguese nurses share their harrowing story. Sisters Isaura Borges Coelho and Hortênsia Campos Lima were arrested in the early 1950s for protesting a law that barred nurses from marrying. Salazar wanted nurses to live like nuns, in line with Catholic conservative ideals.

The defiant sisters look back on the brutal practices of the PIDE, the feared secret police that recruited informants everywhere, fabricated criminal offences, and conducted interrogations behind closed doors. Arrests were often followed by long periods of solitary confinement without formal charges.

De Sousa Dias records their stories as urgently needed testimony, reinforced by archival material. The sisters paid a high price for their fight for justice—Isaura endured the hardships of frequent beatings and solitary confinement.