WVigilantism is the act of enforcement, investigation or punishment of perceived offenses without legal authority.
WAnsar-e Hezbollah is a conservative paramilitary organization in Iran. According to the Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, it is a "semi-official quasi-clandestine organization of a paramilitary character that performs vigilante duties".
WThe Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) is a loose group of militants that was formed in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria to help oust Boko Haram Islamist fighters from their city. The group possesses basic weapons and has female members. The vigilante group numbers over 26,000 in the northeastern Borno and Yobe States, of which only 1,800 receive a salary. The CJTF has suffered about 600 casualties in the conflict, counting both lost and missing members.
WDark Justice are a two-man operation based in Newcastle upon Tyne. They are not police officers, although their tactics are similar to those sometimes used by police. They are an online group who pose as children normally between the ages of 11 and 15 in order to catch online child groomers. When they meet a child groomer in real life, members of Dark Justice wear bulletproof vests. Their evidence has been used in court and has successfully secured the prosecution of over 115 online groomers including Roger Lee, and Barry Scott. In May 2018, the Evening Chronicle reported that Dark Justice have secured over 150 arrests with over 40 of those being jailed.
WThe Freischar was the German name given to an irregular, volunteer military unit that, unlike regular or reserve military forces, participated in a war without the formal authorisation of one of the belligerents, but on the instigation of a political party or an individual. A Freischar deployed against a foreign enemy was often called a Freikorps. The term Freischar has been commonly used in German-speaking Europe since 1848. The members of a Freischar were called Freischärler. As early as 1785 Johann von Ewald published in Kassel his Essay on Partisan Warfare, which described his experiences with the rebels in the North American colonies.
WThe Gulabi Gang is a vigilante group. The group first appeared in Banda district, Uttar Pradesh, as a response to widespread domestic abuse and other violence against women. It was previously commanded by Sampat Pal. The group consists of women between 18 and 60 years old. It is reported to have spread and since 2010, and it has been active across North India, both on the streets and in local politics.
WKohti Vapautta! is a Finnish neo-Nazi organization. It was founded in 2019, and was named after traditional Independence Day rallies. According to the Finnish government, the group is the Finnish branch of the Nordic Resistance Movement, which has been banned by the Pirkanmaa District Court. It is established in all major cities of Finland.
WOleh Valeriovich Lyashko is a Ukrainian politician and journalist who was a long time member of the Verkhovna Rada and leader of the Radical Party.
WJosé Manuel Mireles Valverde was a Mexican medical doctor and leader and founder of the paramilitary self-defense groups that fought against the Knights Templar Cartel, and other cartels, in the state of Michoacán and others, in México. Mireles emerged as an important figure within the self-defense militias during the fall of 2013 as self-defense groups were fighting against the Knights Templar Cartel in Apatzingán and other municipalities on the Michoacán coast. He described his motivation to participate in the armed self-defense groups as stemming from the abuse of the Knights Templar Cartel against himself and his family, himself having been kidnapped by the cartel and several of his family members murdered. This impelled him to take up arms in defense of his community of Tepalcatepec. On 25 November 2020, a Mexican government agency confirmed that Mireles had died from "the effects of COVID-19".
WWestern Nigeria Security Network (WNSN) codenamed Operation Amotekun (Leopard), is a security outfit based in all the six states of the South Western, Nigeria, responsible for curbing insecurity in the region. It was founded on 9 January 2020 in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria as the first regional security outfit initiated by a geopolitical zone in Nigeria.
WPeople Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) is a group formed in 1996 in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa. The organisation came to prominence for acts of vigilante violence against gangsters, including arson and murder.
WPedro Rodrigues Filho, also known as Pedrinho Matador , is a Brazilian serial killer who pursued and killed other criminals. His victims included 47 people who were murdered inside the prisons in which he was imprisoned.
WSoldiers of Odin (SOO) is an anti-immigrant and white supremacist group founded in Kemi, Finland, in October 2015. The group was established as a response to thousands of migrants arriving in Finland amid the European migrant crisis. They call themselves a "patriotic organisation that fights for a white Finland" that wants to scare away "Islamist intruders" they say "cause insecurity and increase crime".
WThe Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) was an Ulster loyalist vigilante group in the Woodvale district of Belfast, an area immediately to the north of the Shankill Road.
WThe Yellow Sand Society, also known as Yellow Way Society, and Yellow Gate Society, was a rural secret society and folk religious sect in northern China during the 19th and 20th century.