Militão Bessa Ribeiro was a Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 politician, member of the Portuguese Communist Party

Portuguese Communist Party

The Portuguese Communist Party is a major left-wing political party in Portugal. It is a Marxist-Leninist party, and its organization is based upon democratic centralism. The party also considers itself to be patriotic and internationalist....

, during the illegality, that struggled against the fascist regime of Estado Novo.

After the death of the former General Secretary of the Party, Bento Gonçalves

Bento António Gonçalves

Bento António Gonçalves, GOL was the second Secretary General of the Portuguese Communist Party. He was born in Montalegre, Vila Real District, in the North of Portugal. Not much is known about his childhood. In 1915 he became an apprentice mechanical turner in Lisbon...

, in the concentration camp of Tarrafal, in Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

, Militão Ribeiro initiated, along with Álvaro Cunhal

Álvaro Cunhal

Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal , was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party from 1961 to 1992...

 and Júlio Fogaça

Júlio Fogaça

Júlio de Melo Fogaça was a Portuguese politician and member of the Portuguese Communist Party , who had a major role in the resistance against the dictatorial regime that ruled Portugal from 1926 to 1974....

, a major reorganization of the Party, in the early 1940s. Such reorganization, based on the Leninist principles, transformed the Party in the major reference of the resistance against the regime.

In 1949, Ribeiro was arrested by the political police, the PIDE

PIDE

In 1969, Marcello Caetano changed the name PIDE to DGS . The death of Salazar and the subsequent ascension of Caetano brought some attempts at democratization, in order to avoid popular insurgency against censorship, the ongoing colonial war and the general restriction of civil rights...

, and imprisoned in the penitentiary of Lisbon. Ribeiro would die shortly after, victim of his own hunger strike

Hunger strike

A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

. Before dying, he managed to send a letter to some Party comrades, written with his own blood.