Member of the Catalan Parliament for Esquerra Republicana, Ruben Wagensberg, is visiting Rojava.
Wagensberg has been visiting camps for internally displaced refugees. He is a migrations expert and Esquerra’s spokesman on the issue. Leaving Barcelona he said he wanted to carry out a first-hand inspection of the effects of the armed conflict prompted by Turkey on the population in Rojava. “We hope to ascertain what the situation is for these displaced people, who cannot reach Europe as refugees, and to denounce Spain’s military support for Turkey,” he said.
Mr Wagensberg said of the Autonomous Administration system that “as far as I could see during my visit, this is one of the best proposals for such a mixed society. It is a model promoting pluralism and co-existence among different peoples, cultures, languages, identities. It is a proposal of solution in a territory which is object of interest for many countries around the world.”

As to the similarities between Catalonia and Rojava, Mr Wagensberg said: “We feel very close to our Kurdish brothers and sisters. Here in Rojava people are facing the Turkish oppression which would like to impose a one-language, one-culture mentality. In Catalonia we face a different type of oppression, that of the Spanish state that would like to impose the same mentality of one-language, one-identity, although not through arms. We think it is very important to join struggles and to create links between our similar claims.”