Yenny Wahid

Yenny Wahid at the 2011 East Asia World Economic Forum

Zannuba Ariffah Chafsoh Rahman Wahid, or more popularly known as Yenny Wahid (born 29 October 1974 in Jombang, East Java) is an Indonesian Islamic activist and politician.

Background

She is the second daughter of the late President of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid. She obtained her bachelor degree in design and visual communication from Trisakti University in Jakarta, but upon graduation she went to work as a journalist for Australian newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. As a journalist, she covered news stories from East Timor and Aceh. For her stories in post-referendum East Timor, she and her team won a Walkley Award for journalism.^[1]

When her father was elected as the country's fourth President, she had to leave her career in journalism in order to assist her father in his new post, with special responsibility for communication. Upon Wahid's impeachment, she went to pursue a master's degree in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government as Mason Fellow.^[2] In 2004, upon her return from Boston, she was appointed as the director of the newly founded Wahid Institute, as political communication advisor to the President of Republic Indonesia 2005-2007, a position that she still retains now. She is also actively involved in the National Awakening Party (PKB) as Secretary General.

Greg Barton in The Australian credits her with having played a crucial role in persuading her father of "the extent of military-backed militia violence in East Timor [...] and the culpability of the Indonesian military leadership".^[3]

She is married to Dhohir Farisi.^[4]

References