Abdul Aziz :
Don't ask about my past

HIS name came up after the Jakarta government announced it would raze down the Kalijodo neighborhood because it stood in the middle of a green zone and because many of its occupants were unscrupulous figures. One particular figure stood out: Abdul Aziz, known as the 'King of Kalijodo', who decided to go to the authorities and express his disapproval on the attempts to regulate the biggest, low-level entertainment district in the capital city.

Forty-seven-year-old Daeng Aziz, as he is familiarly known, caught the public's attention when he went to the office of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) last week to speak on behalf of his fellow Kalijodo residents. He told Commissioner Hafid Abbas, whom he met, of his consternation over the planned eviction of his neighborhood. Then, along with other Kalijodo residents, Aziz went to the Jakarta Council of Representatives (DPRD) to protest the government's action that would deprive residents of their homes and their source of income, if Kalijodo were to be totally 'cleansed'.