Home > Yvonne Ridley
Yvonne Ridley (born 1959?) is a British journalist and politician.She was born on Stanley in County Durham in north east England. She shot to fame in September 2001, when whilst for the Daily Express in Afghanistan, she was captured by the Taliban in September 2001, and held hostage for 11 days.
She offered to read the Qu'ran during her captivity, and later did, partly to find out why the Taliban treated women as they do. She found no justiciation in the Qu'ran for it, and converted to Islam in the summer of 2003. Later that year she was sacked by her then employers Al-Jazeera (where she worked on the English language version of their website), after forming a local branch of the National Union of Journalists.
She was on the top of the RESPECT coalitions's party list at the 2004 European ElectionsThe European Parliament election, 2004 was the UK part of the European Parliament election, 2004. It was the first European election to be held in the United Kingdom using postal-only voting in four areas. It coincided with local and regional elections. for the North East EnglandNorth East England is one of the regions of England. The region is also sometimes known by the alternative title, Northumbria. A more detailed look at the history, culture and dialect of the region may be found in the article on Northumbria. The region ha region but was not elected.
She stood RESPECT candidate at the Leicester South by-electionA by-election was held in Leicester South on July 15, the same day as the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election. It was won by Parmjit Singh Gill of the Liberal Democrats, over-turning a Labour majority of 13,243 votes at the 2001 General Election. The MP for. She came fourth, but with 12.7% of the vote — a huge vote share in the UK for a fourth party.
People stubs
Ridley, Yvonne
