British journalist Yvonne Ridley embraced islam
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Emily Wilson
Guardian
Thursday August 1, 2002
Yvonne Ridley is the burka-clad
Express reporter who was captured donkey-riding on the wrong side of the Afghan
border shortly before the US bombing began last October. She was banged up for
11 days before being set free by her "courteous and respectful" Taliban captors.
Ridley wrote a few hundred thousand words on the subject in her paper on her
return, but it was only in her subsequent book that one really got a sense of
how long and truly terrifying those 11 days were, although of course, as she
never fails to point out, the Taliban were very polite. And, as a comrade who
has read her book points out, nothing very exciting actually happened once she'd
been wrestled from her donkey.
But the Ridley story does not end there. First, there was her return to Kabul
and a "highly-charged" reunion with the two men who guided her into Afghanistan
and who were captured alongside her but were not treated with respect - in fact,
they were beaten and tortured by Ridley's courteous hosts.
Now Ridley is converting to Islam. This week she told the BBC that one of the
conditions of her release was that she read up on "the faith". This she did, and
now she is ready to put her drinking days behind her. So, the BBC reporter
asked, as a Muslim-to-be, did Ridley have any problems with working for a paper
owned by a pornographer? "No," replied Ridley, quick as a flash.
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