Wardah Hafidz

Who is Wardah Hafidz?

Wardah Hafidz is an Indonesian activist lobbying for the rights of the nation's urban poor. She currently serves as coordinator of the Urban Poor Consortium and was formerly its head. She is main protagonist in the 2013 documentary Jakarta Disorder about gentrification and democratization in Jakarta.

She raised controversy in 1999 after announcing that numerous groups had misused social security funds during the elections, calling it "money politics". The accused groups included the Public Participation Center, Women's Participation Cooperative, the People's Sovereignty Party, and Suharto's former ruling party Golkar. Hafidz said that she was "terrorized" after the disclosures and told to vacate her office as it was located in a residential zone.

For her work in promoting human rights in Indonesia, Hafidz won the 2000 Yap Thiam Hien Award, an annual human rights prize named for Chinese-Indonesian activist Yap Thiam Hien.

In 2002, Hafidz accused the Betawi Brotherhood Forum of accepting payment for rallying at Jakarta City Hall after the BBF chased flood-victims organized by UPC with swords and sticks. In response, the head of the Betawi Brotherhood Forum, A.