detainees' rights". The ex-detainees who were arrested eventually signed statutory declarations (SDs) reaffirming their original statements to the Internal Security Department. Five of the detainees said that they were not ill-treated. In Patrick Seong Kwok Kei's SD, he admitted to encouraging the release of the joint statement as he saw it as "an opportunity to discredit the Government and embarrass it externally", as well as feeding information to foreign correspondents to generate "hostile publicity" to pressure govt to release the detainees. He was released after 30 days in detention together with Tang Lay Lee and Ng Bee Leng. Vincent Cheng was conditionally released after three years in mid-June 1990. He had to abide by six restrictive conditions, one of which was not to engage or get involved in any activity that advocated a political cause. Even after the signing of the SDs, there were continued calls for a public inquiry. Minister for Home Affairs S. Jayakumar stated that there was no longer a need to hold a Commission of Inquiry as investigations had showed that the ex-detainees "were not... seeking judicial or legal redress but were acting as political propagandists out to discredit the Government." He also claimed that the foreign press had "hysterical" reactions to the news of the re-arrests, which "did not come as a surprise" to the government. Habeas corpus See Changes to the law After the re-arrests, four of the detainees – Teo Soh Lung, Kenneth Tsang Chi Seng, Wong Souk Yee and Kevin Desmond de Souza – were issued with one-year detention orders. They engaged Anthony Lester and Geoffrey Robertson, Queen's Counsels (QC) from the United Kingdom, to apply to the High Court for writs of habeas corpus, a legal action that requires a person under arrest to be brought before a judge to challenge detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. They were unsuccessful. They then appealed to the Court of Appeal. In a landmark ruling, the Court of Appeal ordered the four detainees to be released but they were immediately re-arrested under new detention orders. The detainees filed fresh applications for writs of habeas corpus, but – with the exception of Teo – later withdrew their applications and were released. Teo's application was dismissed by the High Court after the government amended the Constitution and the Internal Security Act to reverse the Court of Appeal's earlier decision. The amendments were expressed to operate retrospectively.