Baran Sogut, a Sydney-based Kurdish community activist, took part in an Australian delegation in September, visiting the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) — the part of Syria which Kurdish freedom fighters liberated from the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, in the Rojava revolution of 2012. They also helped defeat the brutal and reactionary Islamic State of Syria (ISIS) in the following years.
The delegation included NSW Greens Senator David Shoebridge, the first Australian parliamentarian to visit North East Syria, as well as Kurdish Greens Inner West councillor Ismet Tashtan.
Sogut spoke to 鶹ý's Peter Boyle about the gains and challenges of the Rojava revolution and in particular about his visit to Kobane, the city that was liberated from a siege by several Islamic fundamentalist militias in 2014–15.
The Battle of Kobane was the turning point in an heroic struggle to defeat ISIS.