Operation Spectrum - The Joint Statement and Re-arrests of 1988

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, Teo Soh Lung, Kevin Desmond de Souza, Tang Lay Lee, Ng Bee Leng, William Yap Hon Ngian, Kenneth Tsang Chi Seng, Wong Souk Yee, Chng Suan Tze, and Tang Fong Har said that even though they had hitherto kept a "fearful silence", they decided to release a statement because of "the constant barrage of Government taunts and its public invitation to speak the truth". The following are extracts from the statement:

"We categorically deny the Government's accusation against us. We have never been Marxist conspirators involved in any conspiracy.

"...we were subjected to harsh and intensive interrogation, deprived of sleep and rest, some of us for as long as 70 hours inside freezing cold rooms.

Under these conditions, one of us was repeatedly doused with cold water during interrogation.

Most of us were hit hard in the face, some of us for not less than 50 times, while others were assaulted on other parts of the body, during the first three days of interrogation.

We were threatened with arrests, assault and battery of our spouses, loved ones and friends. We were threatened with INDEFINITE detention without trial. Chia Thye Poh, who is still in detention after twenty years, was cited as an example. We were told that no one could help us unless we "cooperated" with the ISD.

These threats were constantly on our minds during the time we wrote our respective "statements" in detention.

We were compelled to appear on television and warned that our release would depend on our performances on tv. We were coerced to make statements such as "I am Marxist-inclined..."; "My ideal society is a classless society..." ; " so-and-so is my mentor..."; "I was made use of by so-and-so..." in order to incriminate ourselves and other detainees."

One day after release of the statement, all the signatories except Tang Fong Har, who was in the UK at the time, were re-arrested. Patrick Seong Kwok Kei, a Law Society Council member and one of the lawyers who had acted for several of the detainees in 1987 was also arrested on the same day.

On 6 May 1988, lawyer Francis Seow who was representing Teo and Seong was himself arrested under the ISA while waiting inside the ISD headquarters to meet his clients. He was supposed to have filed for writs of habeas corpus for his clients on the same day. The government accused him of "colluding with foreign diplomats and officials to lead a group of opposition lawyers and professionals into Parliament." He was alleged to have misused his status as a legal counsel as a cover for political propaganda and agitation. Seow was held in detention for 72 days and was released, subject to restrictions on his freedom of movement and association, as a result of pressure by international human rights organizations. He was later charged and convicted in absentia for tax evasion, having left Singapore to live in exile in the United States where he became a Fellow at the Department of Asian Studies at Harvard University.

In response to the ex-detainees' allegations of ill-treatment, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced on 19 April that a Commission of Inquiry would be held to determine if the Marxist conspiracy was a government fabrication and whether the detainees were assaulted and tortured. Trade and Industry Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that "the Government does not ill-treat detainees. It does however apply psychological pressure to detainees to get to the truth of the matter...the truth would not be known unless psychological pressure was used during interrogation." Ow Chin Hock, MP for Leng Kee, revealed later that Singaporeans, notably intellectuals, had "harped on the need to protect detainees' rights".

The ex-detainees who were arrested eventually signed statutory declarations (SDs) reaffirming their original statements to the ISD. Five of the detainees said that they were not ill-treated. In Patrick Seong'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 3 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 explained 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 revealed that the foreign press had "hysterical" reactions to the news of the re-arrests, which did not come as a surprise to the government.