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Yvonne Ridley (born 1959?, Stanley, County Durham) is a British journalist and politician.
She came to prominence in September 2001 when she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan whilst working for the Daily Express, 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 Elections for the North East England region but was not elected.
She stood RESPECT candidate at the Leicester South by-election. She came fourth, but with 12.7% of the vote. Despite standing for an allegedly socialist party, she has a reserve commission and sends her children to extremely expensive private schools.
Ridley is the author of "In the Hands of the Taliban: Her Extraordinary Story" (Robson Books, 2003), detailing the 11 days she was held captive by the Taliban; as well as "Ticket to Paradise" (Dandelion Books, LLC 2003), a novel with semi-autobiographical undertones.
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