Urs Signer

Urs Signer

Urs Peter Signer... is a New Zealand based, activist and musician. He is a Swiss national.

A music graduate from Victoria University, Signer developed an interest in "social justice" causes and Maori culture.

He learned te reo Maori and immersed himself in the culture while in Ruatoki, the venue for the camps, to a degree that Tuhoe leader Tamati Kruger said he spoke te reo in a Tuhoe way.

He is the partner of Emily Bailey.

Background

From the Taranaki Daily News;

The first anybody in New Zealand heard of Swiss-born activist Urs Signer was when he took the stage as Elvis in Awatapu College's 2001 production of Be Bop A Lula in Palmerston North.

Emily Bailey cropped up at about the same time at a protest in Wellington calling for peace in Palestine.

Six years later the couple, now together, were arrested in the 2007 Urewera "terror raids", and eventually charged with being part of a criminal group and unlawful possession of firearms.

Not long after that they were living in Taranaki, in a small house at Parihaka, the village from which Maori peace prophet Te Whiti O Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi led a peaceful resistance to Maori land confiscations in the late 1800s.

It was to this isolated home they returned on Thursday after being thrust into the national spotlight for five weeks while their trial played out in Auckland.

The Crown alleged that, along with Tame Iti and Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, the pair wanted to create a revolutionary army willing to kidnap and murder to get self-governance for the Tuhoe people...

The jury may have come to the same conclusion earlier this week when they failed to agree the Urewera Four were a criminal group. They did, however, find them guilty of firearms charges stemming from those infamous grainy images of the group "patrolling" through the Ureweras with rifles, using hand signals and at one stage molotov cocktails.

Even before the verdict was made, Parihaka kaumatua had criticised the charges against Bailey and Signer and publicly pledged their support.

"It would be really different if Emily and Urs were hotheads who didn't really think deeply about things. But Emily and Urs aren't like that," Ruakere Hond, speaker of Parihaka's Te Paepae House and a defence witness at the trial, said...

Later, in a statement sent by Bailey from an email address "ditchthesystem", she says the pair, in all their causes from Peace Action Wellington to the Save Happy Valley Campaign to their opposition to Wellington's Te Aro Bypass and their work with Climate Justice Taranaki, never promoted violence.

"We do not need to defend nor explain what happened at wananga in Tuhoe country but murder, kidnapping and arson, etc, were never a desire of the wananga," Bailey wrote.

Their lawyer, Annette Sykes, is determined to see those convictions thrown out, as they were against the 13 others caught up in the raids in 2007 after the video evidence against them was found to have been illegally gathered. Ms Sykes said this was the same evidence used to convict the Urewera Four which the crown had only been able to submit because the four faced the more serious charge of belonging to a criminal group, a charge they were not convicted of.

"I wish them well. I hope there is no conviction. I hope they are treated the same way as the other group," Ms Sykes said.

Anarchist

Circa 2005 Dissident Voice Issue 8 included this piece from "smush" - Pseudonym for Urs Signer.

On 20th July 2001 23-year old Carlo Giuliani was murdered by a cop during the protests against the G8 summit (the Group of Eight (G8) is the coalition of eight of the world's leading industrialized nations) in Genoa (Italy). Like Carlo, I am part of the movement of movements. The anti-capitalist movement that believes in autonomy and self-determination. A movement that accepts different tactics to create a better world. A movement which fights dams in the Narmada Valley (India), smashes banks in Seattle (USA), protests against prepaid water meters in Soweto (South Africa), attacks fortress Europe in Kundzicze (Poland), forms a human peace sign to show its opposition to the invasion of Iraq in McMurdo Station (Antarctica), sets up a tripod in Te Whanganui-a-Tara to stop the construction of a motorway (Aotearoa) and runs a bakery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires collectively (Argentina).

I came to Anarchism through political activism. Seeing the global leaders coming to town. Living in an alternative village (barrio) for a few days. Experiencing huge meetings where everyone is using hand signals and consensus decision making. Trying to stop the talks of the CEOs and warmongers of this planet. Taking the media-focus back to the streets by attacking the red zone.

And then... Having endless arguments with my parents about veganism and the state. Running up and down the streets of my town armed with a megaphone. Having a go at the lovely Marxists. Talking bullshit on a sunny Sunday afternoon. And...

Well, there's all the Resistance going on in my life. Resistance to capitalism and the state, resistance to authority. Reading about the autonomous movement of Argentina made me realise that my Resistance is somewhat pointless if I don't get stuck into making something of my own at the same time. Fighting the system by attacking it and attacking it again by creating something. Making the alternative normal. Like, becoming the media. Eating the silver beet I planted myself. Doing a shift in the local infoshop. Getting involved with a union as a volunteer. Taking the power back.

While globalisation has given us capitalism at its worst, it has also given me the chance to realise that our movement is global. And maybe that's the special thing about being an anarchist today — to know that there are people out there, all over the world, involved in the struggle for a world of peace with justice and self-determination. A movement of movements.

Well, the future is bright. The revolution can come by about any minute and surely it will.

Carlo Vive!

Clown charges dropped

According to NZPA, Tuesday, 18 March 2008, The charges against a group of costumed protesters, which were withdrawn in court today, have been labelled a waste of time and money by one of those charged.

Seven protesters faced charges of intimidation after they dressed up as clowns and protested outside the Wellington home of Neal Garnett, organiser of a weapons conference, in October 2006.

All charges against them were dropped in Wellington District Court today.

Among the group was peace activist Val Morse, who said the affair seemed to have been a huge waste of time.

Morse said the event was just a "playful protest", with the clowns lying on the ground and dancing about.

Defence lawyer Michael Bott echoed Morse's feelings about a misuse of resources, criticising the police for delays in the case. "My clients were dressed up like clowns, but the other side were acting like clowns."

Mr Bott said he believed an initial bail condition of non-association with other protesters was an attempt to prevent the group from protesting at the weapons conference at Te Papa. The condition was quashed by the High Court.

Mr Bott said the case had been dragged out at huge expense and using hours of lawyers' preparation time only to be dropped at "the 11th hour".

The defence intended to apply for costs, and Judge Thomas Broadmore ordered a police response to a cost application by April 4.

Alongside Morse at court today were fellow protesters Kelly Buchanan, David Cooper, Sebastian Henschel, Jesse Hinchey, Hannah Newport-Watson and Urs Signer . They all belonged to Peace Action Wellington.

Morse said the withdrawal of the charges was a tremendous relief, and that she was pleased the case had highlighted the movement against the use of weapons in wars around the world.

Indymedia editor

Circa 2007, Urs Signer was one of the three main editors of the anarchist news website Indymedia, alongside Asher Goldman and Signer's fellow Urewera 17 arrestee Omar Hamed.

Tonga

In 2006 Signer represented Indymedia in Tonga after the major rioting that devasted central Nuku’alofa

He produced a video of events "The Nu Face of Rebellion"- sympathetic to Tonga’s leftist “pro-Democracy” movement.

"Urewera 17"

Val Morse, Urs Signer

In 2008, the identity of a Wellington film-maker and musician arrested during police anti-terrorism raids was revealed, after an Auckland judge refused to extend an order suppressing his name.

He is Urs Peter Signer, a 23-year-old Swiss national living in Te Aro.

He faces six firearms charges, including the illegal possession of a military-style semi-automatic weapon, a shotgun, rifle and a Molotov cocktail.

The former Victoria University student is understood to have lived in Wellington for several years and is the partner of Emily Bailey, one of three siblings also facing firearms charges following the raids.

Signer was given interim name suppression due to family circumstances when he first appeared in court last year.

Earlier this month, Auckland District Court judge Anne Kiernan declined his application to have the order continued but allowed him one week to lodge an appeal.

The court confirmed yesterday that no appeal had been lodged and that name suppression had now lapsed.

The reasons for the name suppression application remain suppressed.

Signer has been described as a "clarinet player extraordinaire" who has inherited the soul of klezmer - a folk music born out of the Yiddish culture of eastern Europe in the 1800s and 1900s.

Last year he produced a 10-minute film The Nu Face of Youth Rebellion which took an alternative look at the Tongan riots.

Guilty

Dominion Post editorial: "Political acts must fall within the law", 29/05/2012.

By using firearms at military-style training camps in the Ureweras, Tame Iti, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, Urs Signer and Emily Bailey broke the law. They did so repeatedly and in a manner that damaged relations between the Crown and the Tuhoe people. The Independent Police Conduct Authority has yet to rule on the police conduct of the raids that terrified the residents of the eastern Bay of Plenty township of Ruatoki but, whatever it finds, the ultimate responsibility for the raids rests with the four convicted of firearms offences. If they, and others, had not been playing at soldiers in the bush and taking part in alarming discussions, the raids would not have occurred.

The facts, as set out during sentencing by Justice Rodney Hansen, are these: in January, September and October 2007 Iti organized, and the others participated in, a series of camps, or rama, near Ruatoki. During the camps semi-automatic weapons, sawn-off shotguns, and sporting rifles were fired. In addition, Molotov cocktails were made and thrown at one of the camps. When police terminated their surveillance operation, three rifles, two of them semi-automatic, were found under a tarpaulin at Iti’s Ruatoki house, four rifles and a semi-automatic shotgun were found in the boot of Kemara’s car and in a caravan he occupied, and a .22 rifle was found in a backpack at a Wellington campsite occupied by Signer and Bailey.

The explanations proffered by defence counsel for the camps and the use of firearms that participants were being taught bushcraft and survival skills or that they were being trained for employment in the security industry were dismissed by the judge as "utterly implausible".

The evidence pointed, he said, to the establishment of a private militia. That those running the camps did not know what they were doing and posed a greater danger to themselves than the general public is beside the point. So, too, is the fact that the judge concluded they were motivated by a sense of altruism rather than criminality. They wanted to redress Tuhoe grievances.

The judge sentenced Iti and Kemara to two-and-a-half-years' imprisonment. He indicated he was prepared to consider a sentence of nine months' home detention for Signer and Bailey provided a suitable address could be found. They had played a lesser role in the offending.

References

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