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.

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.

She was the author of one of 13 letters sent secretly from Caxias Prison in May 1961, intended to be read at a meeting in Paris and addressed to "organizations and democratic women from all over the world".

After the Carnation Revolution on 25 April 1974, which overthrew the Estado Novo, she returned to living a legal life, reuniting with her father, who she had not seen since his arrest.

[2][4][5] On 19 December 1960, Amnesty International founder Peter Benenson was reading a copy of The Times of London on his way to work, when he saw an article reporting on the sentencing of Lourenço and Verdial.