Yenny Wahid Biography
Zannuba Ariffah Chafsoh, or more popularly known as Yenny Wahid (born 29 October 1974) is an Indonesian Islamic activist, journalist, and politician. She is currently the director of The Wahid Ins*ute, an Islamic research center founded by her father, Abdurrahman Wahid.
Background
She is the second daughter of the late President of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid, a granddaughter of Indonesia's first religion minister Wahid Hasyim, and a great-granddaughter of Hasyim Asy'ari, founder of the world's largest Muslim organization Nahdatul Ulama. She obtained her bachelor's degree in design and visual communication from Trisakti University in Jakarta, but upon graduation she went to work as a journalist for Fairfax Media, publisher of 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.
When her father was elected as the country's fourth President, she had to leave her career in journalism in order to *ist her father in his new post, with special responsibility for communication. Upon Wahid's impeachment, she went to pursue a master's degree at Harvard Kennedy School as a Mason Fellow. In 2004, upon her return from Boston, she was appointed as the director of the newly founded Wahid Ins*ute, as political communication advisor to the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2005 to 2007, a position that she still retains now. She was 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".According to the Wahid Ins*ute, the World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader in 2009, a role in which she remained active as of 2013.She is married to Dhohir Farisi.
References
External links
- Interview with Yenny Zannuba Wahid, 2 November 2007 - part of The Leaders project by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) and AsiaViews
- Struggle for the Soul of Islam: Inside Indonesia - do*entary in the America at a Crossroads series produced by Public Broadcasting Station WETA, Washington, DC
- Wahid's right-hand woman, 26 June 2001 - transcript of Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV interview
