Yvonne Ridley amazing conversion story : So, this is my another favorite conversion story. Yvonne Ridley is a British journalist that came to accept Islam. After listening her conversion story in YouTube, I thought this is pure guidance from Allah (God) Himself. Because I think she herself never thought she will become a Muslim. The other notable thing was how she become the witness of exaggerated and misinform views in western media about Islam. In this case about the Taliban(Afghan Taliban), because she was held captive by them and the Taliban(Afghan Taliban) was not like the media tells. So, here the short version of her story that I took from Wikipedia.. Yvonne Ridley : Yvonne Ridley (born 1959, Stanley, County Durham, England) is a British journalist, war correspondent[1] and Respect Party activist best known for her capture by the Taliban and subsequent conversion to Islam after release, her outspoken opposition to Zionism, and her criticism of Western media portrayals of the War on Terror. Ridley currently works for Press TV, the Iranian-based English language news channel. Capture by the Taliban : Yvonne Ridley came to prominence on 28 September 2001, when she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan whilst working for the Sunday Express. Repeatedly refused an entrance visa, she decided to follow the example of BBC reporter John Simpson, who had crossed the border anonymously in a burqa. Colleagues said Ridley responded to text messages from friends until 26 September 2001, after having told them she would attempt to cross the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan. It became clear that she had been discovered without passport or visa, and was held by the authorities after being arrested with her guides, the Afghan refugee Nagibullah Muhmand and Pakistani Jan Ali, in a village in the Dour Daba district near the eastern city of Jalalabad in Nangahar, close to the border with Pakistan. She was dressed like an Afghan, but it is believed she was caught after attempting to take photographs, an illegal activity under the Taliban. She was spotted two days later, on 28 September, after slipping across the border by local people who pointed her out to security forces, who took her to Jalalabad for further investigation on possible espionage charges, that carried the death penalty. Shortly before, the Taliban had asked all foreigners to leave the country and had said they would not issue visas to journalists. They threatened that anyone found using a satellite phone would be executed. She would at least be prosecuted for entering the country illegally, reported the Afghan Islamic Press agency, quoting the Talibans deputy foreign minister, Mullah Abdur Rahman Zahid. Qudratullah Jamal, the Talibans information minister, expressed the suspicion that Ridley was possibly a member of a military special forces unit like the British SAS. It was also suggested that she and other westerners could be kept by the Taliban as hostages. The British high commissioner to Pakistan, Hilary Synnott, met the Taliban-ambassador in Islamabad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef and opened negotiations intended at a quick release of Ridley. While the press in Britain speculated about the reason of her arrest and the seriousness of the suspicion, she was kept in solitary confinement for seven days and then moved to a prison in Kabul. In the prison in Kabul she met the Christian missionary Heather Mercer, who was also kept by the Taliban and was unaware of the latest developments. The same week British bombings on Afghan targets as part of the Operation Enduring Freedom began, while the whereabouts of Ridley were unknown to the British authorities and it was feared that these bombings would jeopardise her release. Then her release, ordered on humanitarian grounds by Taliban-leader Mullah Mohamed Omar, was reported by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef. After her release on 9 October 2001, when her Taliban captors escorted her from the Kabul prison to a Pakistan border post at the foot of the Khyber Pass, near Peshawar, she revealed that she had kept a concealed diary inside a box for a toothpaste tube and in the inside of a soap wrapper, and had been on hunger strike throughout her captivity, but denied to have been physically hurt in any way. After the release of Ridley, her guides Jan Ali and Nagibullah Muhmand, as well as Basmena, the five-year-old daughter of the latter, were kept by the Taliban in a prison in Kabul, according to Reporters sans Frontières. Conversion to Islam : According her own account after her release, during her captivity she was asked by one of her captors to convert to Islam; she refused, but gave her word she would read the Quran after her release. In freedom, she kept this promise, as she said partly to find out why the Taliban treated women as they do. She said it changed her life. The Quran, she says describing the holy book of Islam, is a magna carta for women.She converted to Islam in the summer of 2003, stating that her new faith has helped put behind her broken marriages and a reputation as the Patsy Stone of Fleet Street. When comparing her treatment to female prisoners held in American custody, such as Aafia Siddiqui, she said that in Talibans custody she was given her full privacy as a woman, and was handed the key to the door of her cell to lock from the inside.In 2004, she described her journey of faith for the BBCs religion site (see A Muslim in the Family), as well as in other publications and on other occasions in which she emerged as a fierce critic of the West.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 10:43:22 +0000
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