Chairperson of the Kurdish Human Rights Action Group (KHRAG) in South Africa Mahmoud Patel was interviewed by journalist Erem Kansoy.

The interview talks about the campaign launched by the Kurdish Human Rights Action Group (KHRAG) in South Africa and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The campaign is called "The Time Has Come: Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan towards a just peace in Turkey" and calls on the United Nations to take immediate action to favour the release of Ocalan.

The "key objective" of the campaign "is to promote a just peace in Turkey and the region. President Erdogan's authoritarian regime has in the last few years pursued an internal and external policy of expansionism and aggression. These expansionist policies has negatively affected the Kurds in Turkey, and has undermined peace efforts in Middle East, North Africa, Caucasus and Europe."

Campaigners also wrote an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

Mahmoud Patel is an academic, legal scholar and activist. He is an executive member and chairperson of the Kurdish Human Rights Action Group (KHRAG) in South Africa. Mahmoud Patel has also served in the past as a member in the Ideology Commission of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Western Cape after being appointed by the head of the ANC Research and Development Unit (Parliament). Mahmoud Patel is a former Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) operative.

The interview was prepared with the support of the Freedom for Ocalan Campaign and the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign in collaboration with Medya Haber TV and Sterk TV.