Estado Novo
After the Coup of May 28, 1926, Gomes da Costa signed a decree on July 5 that would secure freedom of thought "independent from bonds and censorship", even though it insisted on prohibiting offences to the republic's institutions or any behaviour that would disturb public order. The Press Law of the new military executive repeated almost word-for-word the assurances of article 13 from the previous Press Law, allowing criticism and discussion of legislative bills, political and religious doctrines, acts of government, and so forth, as long as the goal was to "enlighten and prepare the (public) opinion for the necessary reforms(...)". On July 29, however, prior censorship was re-instated. The Estado Novo never took a definite stance on the censorship, avoiding even discussion of the subject the few times the issue was raised in the Parliament. If only the signed legislation is taken into account, one might suppose the regime was quite lenient. On May 27, 1927 the Literary Property Law was reformed, which in its letter guaranteed censorship-free publication. A decree of September 3, 1926 had already extended the freedom of the press concept to apply on the Overseas Provinces, pending a future law that would be signed into effect on June 27, 1927.
On April 11, 1933 a new constitution was published. While its article 8, n.4, would establish the "freedom of thought under any form", n.20 of the same article states that "special laws will regulate the exercise of the freedom of expression". One article would also explain that the purpose of censorship is "to prevent the perversion of public opinion in its function of social force and (censorship) should be exercised so as to defend (public opinion) from all factors that might make it stray from the truth, justice, morality, good administration and common good, and to avoid that the fundamental principles of organization of society are attacked". As would be expected, the government reserved for itself the definition of criteria for this truth, justice, and morality. In fact it would be António de Oliveira Salazar himself who said in that same year, "Men, groups and classes see, observe things, study the events, under the light of their own interest. Only an institution has, by duty and position, to see everything under the light of everyone's interest".
The decree 22 469, published on the same day as the Constitution, was explicit in establishing prior censorship for periodicals, "handbills, leaflets, posters and other publications, whenever in any of them political or social matters are covered". By May 14, 1936, the creation of newspapers was regulated and official public notices were also removed from some of them, so as to prevent any sort of official connection between government and the press.
The "Regulamento dos Serviços de Censura" (Censorship Services Regulations) was adopted in November of the same year but was, however, not published in the Diário do Governo (the official journal). Whoever wanted to establish a newspaper or magazine would have to, from the on, require a permit from the direction of the Service. In order to prevent white spaces from appearing in newspapers' pages, as had happened during the First Republic, the Estado Novo would force them to completely reorganize the pages before printing, so that any traces of censorship were disguised. Adding to this, editors were sometimes forced to submit pre-press pages to the censorship commission which would make maintaining a paper unbearably expensive and eventually drove some editors into bankruptcy. In 1944 the Censorship Service fell under the "Secretariado Nacional de Informação" (National Information Secretariat) which in turn was under the control of Salazar himself.
Using the "lápis azul" (blue pencil, which came to be a symbol of censorship), city and district censors would strike out any text deemed unsuitable for publication. While receiving generic instructions regarding which subjects were sensitive and should be censored, each censor would decide by himself what was admissible or not, resulting in considerable variations in what got published. This was mainly because censors were intellectually a very disparate group: while some would quickly cut any "dangerous" text, others would let by openly subversive content. This becomes readily clear by examining the original, striked-out articles preserved to date.
An order from the Direction of Censorship Services noted that, concerning children's and young adult books, "it seems desirable that the Portuguese children are educated, not as citizens of the world, in preparation, but as Portuguese children, that will soon no longer be children but will continue to be Portuguese".
Books were not subject to prior censorship, but could be confiscated after being published. This would be frequently enforced by the Direcção-Geral de Segurança (General Directorate of Security, the political police), which would issue search warrants for bookstores. The post office would also monitor any mailing of books. The Inspecção Superior de Bibliotecas e Arquivos (Library and Archive Inspection) would also forbid the reading of certain documents, namely those concerning Portuguese India after the War of Baçaim (1732/1739). The Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) would also keep a list of books that were not to be read.
When Salazar was replaced in office by Marcello Caetano, some liberalization was promised. In an interview given to the O Estado de S. Paulo, a Brazilian newspaper, Caetano himself promised to enact a new Press law shortly thereafter. However, little did change. According to "Evolution in Continuity", Caetano's political doctrine, "Prior Censorship" was now termed "Prior Exam". The State Secretary for Informatio and Tourism would say that: "Nothing has changed in this house, not the spirit, nor the devotion to essential values, nor the course of action", maintaining what was Salazar's stated purpose for the institution: "To maintain the truth". As an example of the "new" state of things, on October 26, 1972, for an article about the prohibition of a play (an adaptation of "O Arco de Sant’Ana" by Almeida Garrett), the Prior Exam Services from Oporto rejected a version that referred to the prohibition: "Don't mention it was forbidden. It can be said, however, that it won't come to stage".
Read more about this topic: Censorship In Portugal