Turkish-Brazilian dual national Mustafa Göktepe was arrested in São Paulo on Wednesday following an extradition request from the Turkish government over his links to the Gülen movement, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported, citing the Brazilian Folha de S.Paulo daily.
The arrest, ordered by Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Flávio Dino, is provisional and will remain in effect while the court considers whether to grant the extradition.
Göktepe, 47, has lived in Brazil for two decades and became a naturalized citizen in 2012. He is married to a Brazilian woman and has two daughters, aged 8 and 13, both born in Brazil. A well-known figure in the Turkish-Brazilian community, he operates a chain of Turkish restaurants providing employment to more than 100 people. He is also president of the Institute for Intercultural Dialogue (Instituto Pelo Dialogo Intercultural), a Brazilian NGO focusing on promoting intercultural dialogue.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in December 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He locked up thousands, including many prosecutors, judges and police officers involved in the investigations.
He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Göktepe’s lawyer, Beto Vasconcelos, criticized the arrest as politically motivated and said the extradition request lacks legal merit under Brazilian and international law. “In addition to being a naturalized Brazilian, married to a Brazilian woman and having two Brazilian daughters, Mustafa is a leader in the defense of political and religious tolerance and in the defense of democracy,” Vasconcelos said.
He added that the defense would move quickly to challenge the detention. “We are taking steps to request the revocation of his arrest,” Vasconcelos said, “confident that the Supreme Court, as soon as it is informed of the facts by the defense, will do so.”
Since the coup attempt in July 2016, Turkey’s repression of political dissidents has expanded into a global phenomenon, marked by systematic efforts to silence critics overseas. The Erdoğan government has employed a range of coercive tactics, including illegal renditions, surveillance, diplomatic pressure and the abuse of international legal mechanisms, including INTERPOL.
This is the third extradition request made by the Turkish government against members of the Gülen movement residing in Brazil. In both previous cases, the Supreme Federal Court rejected the requests, citing political motivation and lack of legal basis.
In 2019 Turkish authorities sought the extradition of Ali Sipahi, a naturalized Brazilian citizen, Gülen movement member and business partner of Göktepe. He was briefly detained under a preventive measure, but the STF unanimously denied the extradition request.
In 2022 the Supreme Federal Court denied the extradition request for another Gülen member, businessman Yakup Sagar, also accused of terrorism by the Turkish government.
In its coverage of the story, CNN Brazil noted that no country other than Turkey designates the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization and that similar extradition requests have been routinely denied by courts worldwide. The outlet also pointed to concerns about the lack of judicial independence in Turkey, where President Erdoğan exerts sweeping control over the legal system, undermining due process and freedom of expression.
Göktepe’s case comes amid widespread international concern over Turkey’s transnational repression efforts. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Freedom House have identified Turkey as a leading perpetrator of cross-border suppression of dissent, citing a pattern of politically motivated extradition requests, surveillance and pressure on host governments. The U.S. State Department and the United Nations have also raised concerns about Ankara’s misuse of international mechanisms to pursue critics abroad, warning that such practices undermine international legal norms and endanger the rights of exiled individuals.