Cadeia do Aljube is a former prison in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, now serving as a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

Situated near the

Sé Cathedral The Sé Catedral de Santa Catarina, known as Se Cathedral, is the cathedral of the Latin Church Archdiocese of Goa and Daman and the seat of the Patriarch of the East Indies. It is part of the World Heritage Site, Churches and convents of Go ...

in the parish of Santa Maria Maior, the prison housed those convicted through the Ecclesiastical Forum until 1820, then women accused of common crimes until the end of the 1920s. From 1928 until its closure in 1965,

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

s of the ''

Ditadura Nacional The (, National Dictatorship) is the name given to the regime that governed Portugal from the end of the First Portuguese Republic with the 28 May 1926 coup d'état, until the adoption of a new constitution in 1933 that ushered in the so-cal ...

'' and '' Estado Novo'' were held there. Famous former inmates include Francisco Miguel Duarte, Telo Mascarenhas and

Mário Soares Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares (; 7 December 1924 – 7 January 2017) was a Portugal, Portuguese politician, who served as prime minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the List of Presidents of P ...

. After this it was converted to hold common criminals and offices of the

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

Museum

Since 2015, the building has been used as the Museum of the Resistance and Liberty. An inscription on the outside reads:

References

{{Authority control Year of establishment missing Defunct prisons in Portugal Museums established in 2015 Museums in Lisbon History museums in Portugal Prison museums in Europe