Islamic Defenders Front

The Islamic Defenders Front (Indonesian: Front Pembela Islam; abbr. FPI) was an Indonesian hardline Islamist organization founded in 1998 by Muhammad Rizieq Shihab with backing from military and political figures. Since 2015, Ahmad Shabri Lubis has been the organization's leader, while Rizieq Shihab holds the title of Grand Imam (Indonesian: Imam Besar) of the FPI for life. The FPI originally positioned itself as an Islamic religious police, mostly by conducting illegal and unauthorized vigilante operations. It also acted as an Islamist pressure group with prominent social media activism and mass mobilizations against pro-government activists, ethnic Chinese, Christian minority, as well as liberal and reformist politicians.

The organization staged a number of religious and political mass protests, including the November 2016 Jakarta protests and other rallies against the then-Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama. The FPI also rallied outside the American Embassy in Jakarta in 2003 in order to condemn the Iraq War. The protesters were accused of committing hate crimes in the name of Islam and religious-related violence.

On 30 December 2020, the Indonesian government issued a joint ministerial decree in which it banned the FPI. The government said that the FPI had threatened Indonesia's national ideology, committed illegal raids and atrocities including terrorism, and its organizational permit had expired. The government also showed footage of Rizieq Shihab pledging the FPI's allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) and advocating the establishment of a caliphate. The disbandment came a few weeks after six FPI members were shot dead by police.