The International State Defence Police (PIDE), created in 1945 from the State Surveillance and Defence Police (PVDE, 1933-1945), and its successor, the General Directorate of Security (DGS), established in 1969, were the political police of the dictatorial regime in Portugal until 1974.

The PIDE/DGS served, on the one hand, to intimidate and thus prevent public opposition to the regime and, on the other, to destroy all organised opposition to the Estado Novo.

This book analyses how the political police repressed all those who showed any social, political or even religious dissent; how it was structured and what its methods were; how many and who the political detainees were; what life was like in the PIDE/DGS prisons and the political trial in the plenary courts; what the relations were between the political police and the political judicial apparatus; and, finally, it describes how the DGS collapsed on 25 April 1974.

Irene Flunser Pimentel holds a Master's degree in Contemporary History (20th Century) and a PhD in Institutional History and Contemporary Politics from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the New University of Lisbon.