Yvonne Ridley

Yvonne Ridley was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan on 28 September 2001, and held for 11 days, while working for the Sunday Express.[8] In the days before the beginning of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, after being refused an entrance visa, she decided to follow the example of BBC reporter John Simpson, who had crossed the border anonymously in a burqa.[9]

She entered on 26 September, and spent two days undercover in Afghanistan. It was on her return, travelling with her guides, that she was uncovered when the donkey she was on bolted and her camera was seen by a Taliban soldier.[8] She was accused of being a spy, which carried a death sentence, and at the very least faced jail for illegally entering Afghanistan.[10]

The publisher of Express Newspapers, Richard Desmond, sent a team a negotiators to talk directly with Taliban officials at the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. It soon became clear the regime wanted neither money nor aid but proof that Ridley was a bonafide journalist. The British high commissioner to Pakistan, Hilary Synnott, met the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, and asked for her release.[11] Following her release on 8 October, Ridley was escorted to the border, where she was handed over to the Pakistani authorities.[12] It had been feared that this would be jeopardised by the bombing of Afghan targets as part of the War in Afghanistan that had commenced the previous day.[13]

Ridley revealed that she had kept a concealed diary inside a box for a toothpaste tube and in the inside of a soap wrapper. She had been on hunger strike throughout her captivity and described her experience as terrifying but she was not physically hurt. It transpired that during the interrogations to establish her identity she had insulted her captors.[8][14]

After her release, her guides Jan Ali and Nagibullah Muhmand, as well as his five-year-old daughter Basmena, were held in prison in Kabul. At least three of Muhmand's relatives were also arrested for aiding Ridley after the Taliban developed the film in her camera. All were subsequently released without charge or harm.[15][16] Ridley had made several public pleas, including one via the BBC's Pashto and Persian Service, urging the Taliban to release the prisoners on the same humanitarian grounds the regime had shown her. She said later she was careful not to refer directly to the men as her guides since they had previously agreed not to admit any involvement in the event of capture.

She said in her book, In the Hands of the Taliban, that, while she was in captivity, she was treated with respect by the men of the Taliban and was, subsequently, amazed by their courtesy. All men that she came in contact with lowered their gazes (to her), which left her bewildered. She had initially thought they had already decided to have her executed and therefore could not look her in the eyes. Only later did she discover they were showing her a sign of respect. While in captivity she gave an undertaking to read the Qur'an and study Islam if they let her go. Fulfilling the promise and setting out on what she described as "an academic exercise" she said she was shocked to discover "the Quran makes it clear that women are equal in spirituality, worth, and education. What everyone forgets is that Islam is perfect; people are not."[17]

She converted to Islam in the middle of 2003, claiming that her new faith has helped put behind her broken marriages and embrace "the biggest and the best family in the world."[18]

After her conversion, she delivered lectures on issues relating to Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Uzbekistan, women in Islam, the War on Terror, and journalism at universities across the US, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East.[3] She has authored and contributed towards a number of books called In The Hands of the Taliban[19] and Ticket to Paradise.[20] A later book entitled Torture: Does It Work was published by Military Press Studies in 2016.[21] In 2019 she authored the book The Rise of the Prophet Muhammad: Don't Shoot the Messenger[22] published by academic house Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Ridley was a patron of the UK-based pressure groups Cageprisoners until December 2014, the European President of the International Muslim Women's Union, and the Vice President of the European Muslim League based in Milan and Geneva.[23] She is a member of the Stop the War Coalition, for which she has spoken at its rallies,[24] and was a member of the Respect Party, for which she stood in parliamentary elections before resigning both leadership and from the party in early 2014.

In December 2001, Ridley's memoir In the Hands of the Taliban was published which includes an account of the 10 days she was held captive.[19] In it, she expressed worries that officers from Mossad, the Israeli secret service, or from other intelligence agencies, were plotting to have her killed in an effort to boost public support for the war in Afghanistan having been shown incriminating documents by a journalist for the Arabic channel, Al Jazeera.[25]

She left her job with Express Newspapers, and announced she would return to Afghanistan to work on a sequel to her book.[26] The sequel has not yet materialised although she produced a programme for BBC Radio Four called The Return after she did return in 2002 and then the following year as part of a travel feature for The Observer with her daughter Daisy.[27]

Ridley was employed in 2003 by the Qatar-based media organisation Al Jazeera, where, as a senior editor, she helped launch their English-language website. In November of that year she was dismissed because Al Jazeera found her "overly-vocal and argumentative style" was incompatible with the station's programme.[28] Her termination of her employment was also attributed to her campaigning for journalists' rights on the Al Jazeera English channel and website.[29] She brought a case for unfair dismissal against the organisation, winning that case and the subsequent appeals which took four years. She was awarded 100,000 Qatari riyals, which equated to around £14,000.[30] In December 2003, she released a novel, Ticket to Paradise, based on the backdrop of 9/11.[20]

She began presenting The Agenda With Yvonne Ridley, the Islam Channel's politics and current affairs programme, in October 2005. In 2007, the Islam Channel was fined £30,000 by Ofcom after a series of breaches relating to her show and another show.[31] She resigned in April 2007, complaining that she had effectively been dismissed after relations between her and the channel's CEO, Mohamed Ali Harrath broke down. She brought another case of unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. In April 2008, Ridley again won her case and was awarded £26,000 damages against the Islam Channel.[32]

Ridley is a freelance journalist and presenter, and for several years regularly worked for Press TV, the Iranian English-language 24-hour news channel. She hosted a weekly current affairs and politics show called The Agenda,[33] last broadcast on 31 March 2012.[34] She also wrote a column for the now-closed Daily Muslims, an online newspaper for North American Muslims. It was in this paper that an obituary calling Chechen militant Islamist Shamil Basayev a shaheed, a Muslim honorific for "martyr", was published.[35]

In May 2008, in an assignment for Press TV, she and the film-maker David Miller shot a documentary on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp where they filmed on-site and also interviewed former inmates.[36] Their film Guantanamo: Inside the Wire was nominated in the 2009 Roma Film Fest in Italy,[37] and in the 2010 Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival in Qatar.[38] Another film made in 2009 was also nominated in the 2010 Aljazeera festival; In Search of Prisoner 650, directed by Hassan Ghani, claimed that Aafia Siddiqui was held prisoner in secret by the US.[39]

Ridley joined the Free Gaza Movement in Cyprus in August 2008, as it headed for Gaza to challenge the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. She arrived without incident in Gaza on 23 August. During their brief stay Ridley interviewed Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh for Press TV.[40] In early 2009, Ridley helped organise and took part in the Viva Palestina convoy of around 100 vehicles bearing aid across North Africa to Gaza via the Rafah border.[41]

In July 2009, in the wake of Press TV's coverage of the 2009 Iranian presidential election and the subsequent protests, Ridley and other journalists working for Press TV were accused of being stooges for the Iranian regime.[42]

Ridley in 2009

Ridley was first on the Respect list for the 2004 European Elections for the North East England region, but was not elected; the party placed last with 1.1% of the vote.[43] She stood for Respect in the Leicester South by-election in 2004, where she came fourth with 12.7% of the vote. When she stood there again in the 2005 general election, although she still placed fourth, her share of the vote fell to 6.4%. In the local government elections in 2006, she stood unsuccessfully for a seat on Westminster City Council.[3]

In the 2012 Rotherham by-election, held on 29 November, Ridley was the Respect Party candidate. Respect Yourself, a leaflet distributed during the campaign which accused the Labour Party of racism, was attributed by Labour to Respect. Labour reported the matter to the police and the returning officer. Respect put the incident down to "dirty tricks"; the leaflet was without the legally required notice identifying the source.[44] In the final result, Ridley came fourth with 1,778 votes or just over 8% of the total votes cast.[45]

In January 2013, she was scheduled to attend the Spring of Islam Conference organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in Hyderabad, India. She was given all necessary clearances by the external affairs ministry, but was denied a visa at the last minute because of the tense situation in Hyderabad following the arrest of controversial local legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi a few days before the event was scheduled to take place. However Ridley, through video conference, addressed three sessions of girls, women and journalists during the conference.[64]

Ridley says there is a clear difference between the ideologies of the Taliban and ISIL arguing while the Taliban aims to form an Islamic state within the borders of Afghanistan, ISIL is working to create a border-less Islamic state and disregards the sovereignty of other nations. She also claims that ISIL recruits by promising financial supports and power, and the Taliban is largely run and supported by Afghan people.[65] She wrote a damning chapter on the exploits of ISIL in her book The Rise of the Prophet Muhammad Don't Shoot The Messenger[66] In 2013 Ridley offered to swap places with ISIL/DAESH hostage David Haines according to reports published later.[67][68]