48 Facts About Yvonne Ridley

Yvonne Ridley was born on 23 April 1958 and is a British journalist, author and politician who holds several committee positions with the Alba Party in Scotland.

Yvonne Ridley was a former chair of the National Council of the now-defunct Respect Party.

Yvonne Ridley is a vocal supporter of the Palestinian movement, which she took up as a schoolgirl in her native County Durham.

Yvonne Ridley is an avid critic of Zionism and of Western media portrayals and foreign policy in the war on terror, and has undertaken speaking tours throughout the Muslim world as well as America, Europe and Australia.

Yvonne Ridley has been called "something close to a celebrity in the Islamic world" by the journalist Rachel Cooke, and in 2008 Ridley said that she had been voted the "most recognisable woman in the Islamic world" by Islam Online.

Yvonne Ridley was born in the working class mining town of Stanley, County Durham, the youngest of three girls, and had an upbringing in the Church of England.

Yvonne Ridley began her career at the local Stanley News, which was part of the Durham Advertiser Series.

Yvonne Ridley was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan on 28 September 2001, and held for 11 days, while working for the Sunday Express.

Yvonne Ridley was accused of being a spy, which carried a death sentence, and at the very least faced jail for illegally entering Afghanistan.

Yvonne Ridley revealed that she had kept a concealed diary inside a box for a toothpaste tube and inside of a soap wrapper.

Yvonne Ridley had been on hunger strike throughout her captivity and described her experience as terrifying but she was not physically hurt.

Yvonne Ridley 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.

Yvonne Ridley initially thought they had already decided to have her executed and therefore could not look her in the eyes.

Yvonne Ridley has authored and contributed towards a number of books called In The Hands of the Taliban and Ticket to Paradise.

Yvonne 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 Secretary General of the European Muslim League based in Milan and Geneva.

Yvonne Ridley is a member of the Stop the War Coalition, for which she has spoken at its rallies, 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.

Yvonne Ridley left her job with Express Newspapers, and announced she would return to Afghanistan to work on a sequel to her book.

Yvonne 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.

Yvonne Ridley brought a case for unfair dismissal against the organisation, winning that case and the subsequent appeals which took four years.

Yvonne Ridley began presenting The Agenda With Yvonne Ridley, the Islam Channel's politics and current affairs programme, in October 2005.

Yvonne Ridley 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.

Yvonne Ridley is a freelance journalist and presenter, and for several years regularly worked for Press TV, the Iranian English-language 24-hour news channel.

Yvonne Ridley hosted a weekly current affairs and politics show called The Agenda.

Yvonne Ridley wrote a column for the now-closed Daily Muslims, an online newspaper for North American Muslims.

In 2008, Yvonne Ridley interviewed Gazan Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh for Press TV.

In early 2009, Yvonne 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.

Yvonne Ridley has given vocal support for Muslim causes involving Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Xinjiang and Uzbekistan at anti-war demonstrations.

Yvonne Ridley has been highly critical of Britain's foreign policy.

At the "Muslimer i Dialog" conference in Copenhagen in September 2005, Yvonne Ridley was asked by Danish terror expert Lars Erslev Andersen if she saw it as a problem that militant Islamists distribute recruiting videos of Iraqi insurgents killing hostages.

Yvonne Ridley replied that Muslims used the videos at home as an alternative form of news to what she perceived as the propaganda of Western media.

Yvonne Ridley returned to Copenhagen in May 2006 to take part in an Islam Channel conference on Islamophobia, where she urged Muslims not to "kneel before their enemies" or "kiss the hand that slaps them".

Yvonne Ridley herself had believed it, but in keeping her promise to her Taliban captors that she would read the Quran, she "realized I had been lied to", and converted.

Yvonne Ridley later said that she only wanted Muslim leaders, not the whole community, to stop co-operating.

In February 2018, Yvonne Ridley was invited to speak at the Oxford Union as part of a debate entitled "This House Believes We Cannot Thrive Without Religion".

In February 2025, Yvonne Ridley appeared on Talk with journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer and stated that Hamas had shown "kindness" to the Israeli hostages they had kidnapped in the October 7,2023 attack, only to have their efforts "backlashed" by the Israelis.

In January 2013, Yvonne Ridley was scheduled to attend the Spring of Islam Conference organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in Hyderabad, India.

Yvonne Ridley 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.

Yvonne Ridley said there is a clear difference between the ideologies of the Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, arguing that while the Taliban aims to form an Islamic state within the borders of Afghanistan, ISIL was working to create a border-less Islamic state and disregarded the sovereignty of other nations.

Yvonne Ridley claimed that ISIL recruited by promising financial supports and power, and the Taliban is largely run and supported by Afghan people.

Yvonne Ridley wrote a damning chapter on the exploits of ISIL in her book The Rise of the Prophet Muhammad: Don't Shoot the Messenger.

In 2013, Yvonne Ridley offered to swap places with ISIL hostage David Haines, according to reports published later.

Yvonne Ridley had told the same to colleagues on The Northern Echo and repeated it in interviews.

Yvonne Ridley resides in Scotland, where she moved to in 2011, and was a Scottish National Party member, largely in her newly-found desire to support and aid Scottish independence.

In 2021, Yvonne Ridley confirmed that she had left the SNP and joined the Alba Party, primarily over her disagreement with SNP policy around gender recognition.

In January 2014, Yvonne Ridley was nominated for the Muslim Woman of the Year award at the British Muslim Awards.

Yvonne Ridley has worked with the non-governmental organisation Protect the Rohingya, when she helped a team of South African lawyers take statements of alleged war crimes from refugees who had fled Myanmar.

Yvonne Ridley has worked with Syrian women prisoners who were victims of torture and abuse while held by the Assad regime in Syria.

Yvonne Ridley was portrayed by Hattie Morahan in the film Official Secrets.