to print and distribute Workers' Party pamphlets during the 1984 General Elections. After the elections, they said, Kenneth Tsang Chi Seng and Tan Tee Seng moved into positions of influence within the party, and later took control of the party's publication, The Hammer, and used it as a channel to propagate anti-government sentiments and influence public opinion against the government. International response Reactions to the news of the arrests arrived swiftly from abroad. Senior Minister S. Rajaratnam stated that the detentions had drawn protests from about 200 organisations in the United States, Europe, Thailand, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Major Asian news publications such as the Far Eastern Economic Review, Asiaweek and The Star followed the affair closely and offered minute analyses, generally taking a critical tone with regard to the actions of the Singapore authorities. Prominent examples of external organisations that challenged the People's Action Party during the 1987 Internal Security Act arrests are the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Amnesty International, World Council of Churches and Asia Watch. Amnesty International sent a group to Singapore to investigate the case, later adopting all twenty-two detainees as prisoners of conscience. The ICJ also sent a mission to Singapore. Its report on 12 October 1987 stated that there was no evidence which justified the detainees being labelled 'Marxists' or 'Communists'; that the treatment of the detainees by the Internal Security Department amounted to "clear and grave violations of human rights"; and that "the Mission's report endorses world opinion that the real motive for these detentions is to quash internal opposition and criticism of the Singapore government." The affair was also brought to the attention of the European Parliament. On 4 July 1987, fifty-five members of the United States Congress, among whom were several presidents of Justice Commissions, signed a letter demanding that legal procedures begin or else that the detainees be set free. At a meeting, the foreign affairs ministers of the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia asked their Singapore counterpart for explanations of the affair. Fifteen deputies of Japan's National Diet also sent a letter to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The joint statement and re-arrests of 1988 With the exception of Vincent Cheng, all the detainees were released, on various dates, before the end of 1987. On 18 April 1988, nine of the ex-detainees released a joint statement to the press. In the statement,