Yvonne Ridley - From Captive to Convert

bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim brothers sisters friends assalamualaikum welcome it gives me tremendous pleasure to be in New Zealand and to share my story with so many of you tonight now I can see a lot of non-muslims in the room just relax I'm not Islam's answer to Billy grain I want to share the story with you so you can enjoy it maybe understand a little bit more about Islam the title of the story is from Kabul to Kaaba but I want to take you back a few weeks before I entered Kabul I want to take you back to September 11 I bet everyone in this room can remember exactly where they were who they were with what they were doing when they heard about September 11 the Muslims that I have spoken to who saw the horrific events unfold on television told me that at the moment of the second plane going into the twin towers and realizing it was a terrorist strike their first reaction was please God don't let this be the work of Muslims I was in my newsroom in Fleet Street in Londyn when i noticed people gathering around the television sets that were there and i shouted over to somebody at the Sunday Express and said what's going on and they said oh there's been a terrible accident there's a plane crushed into one of the Twin Towers in New York and the something compelling isn't there about live news breaking and live pictures and I went up and joined everybody else and watched the drama unfold and then we saw the second plane going in I've told you about the immediate reaction of Muslims my immediate reaction was this is a big big story it's bigger than the assassination of JFK could even be bigger than man landing on the moon I've got to get out to New York my reaction was different to those of the Muslims certainly by the time I got to Heathrow Airport the twin towers had imploded the Pentagon had been hit a plane had gone down in Pennsylvania America was at war it was under siege her airspace had been closed down her borders had been sealed and I physically couldn't get into the country no matter which airline or which route I looked at it was impossible and so I hung around Heathrow in and out for the next four days finally I got that tickets for the first flight out to New York and as I was making my way to the departure lounge my phone went and it was my boss the news editor he said there's been a change of plans we want you to go to Pakistan I was furious the contacts that I had been making were in New York my clothes that I had packed within New York I'd never been to Pakistan I probably needed injections you know what is this country why do you want to send me there this is a Middle Eastern thing why don't I go to the Middle East and he said no the story is going to unfold in in Pakistan in neighboring Afghanistan within 12 hours I arrived in Islamabad dressed for New York which went down very well as you can imagine and over the next few days I started writing about people's hopes and fears for the impending war which was going to happen in neighboring Afghanistan where the richest country in the world was going to bomb the poorest country in the world by the end of the week 3,000 journalists from around the world had joined me they were in Peshawar they were in Islamabad and they were down in Quetta thousands of journalists from all over the world from print radio TV the internet every form of communication you can imagine I worked for a Sunday newspaper I was the chief reporter of the Sunday Express and I was trying to second-guess what the news would be at the weekend you get a chance to be more analytical and I'm not a journalist who has ever been spoon-fed from governments I don't trust them and so I began to think that the best story was probably in Afghanistan from the ordinary people the ordinary Afghan people I wanted to know what their expectations and fears were what life was like for them living under the Taliban we'd read a lot of news according to bush and Blair the Taliban was the most evil brutal regime in the world they subjugated and oppressed women they killed them randomly the tails that were coming out were terrible I distinctly remember Tony Blair saying these people are so evil they won't even let their children fly kites and so I decided well I need to find this out for myself and I went to the Taliban embassy in Islamabad and I tried three times to get a visa and three times I was rejected and so in the end with my guides I had got two or three guides who were helping me I decided to sneak into Afghanistan the idea was planted in my head by the BBC's chief correspondent John Simpson who had put on a burka and put his toe into Afghanistan and said hey look I've become invisible and I thought well if the BBC's gargantuan correspondents can become invisible then surely it will be easy for me and so we devised a plan that we would be part of a wedding party I would go in with two guides one from the NW FP province in Pakistan the other one was born in Afghanistan and we went in as a group I put on the burka we drove through the Khyber Pass that was another eye-opening experience I imagined the Khyber Pass to be about 30 yards long it was 33 miles long winding dramatic mountainous roads amazing scenery traces of British imperialism everywhere and then we went right down into a Dust Bowl known as Tolkien and there was no man's land we got out of the car and started to walk towards the Taliban checkpoint where some very scary-looking men with great big beards and big black turbines and Kalashnikovs were sitting waiting suddenly I could hear my heart thump thump thump in my ears and I'm beginning to think maybe this isn't such a good idea I wanted to turn round and run away but I'd gone beyond the point of no return but it was as predicted I had become invisible I didn't even warrant a first look never mind a second look as we crossed the Taliban checkpoint I think I was a cross on someone's ID papers and we went across we jumped into a taxi and we headed for the first major city which was Jalalabad I was very tense very excited I was going to see firsthand what life was like in one of the major cities in Afghanistan in this male-dominated regime where women were oppressed and subjugated according to bush and Blair when we pulled up at the marketplace I was really surprised because there who was doing all the shopping the men you can't get Western men into supermarkets or to do the shopping and there were all these men doing the shopping I thought well this is a good sign of course the reason for that was under the Taliban regime women were not allowed to talk to strange men and strange men were any men other than a husband a father a brother or a close male relative so doing something as simple as buying a bag of sugar was virtually impossible unless you were related to the trader there were women around they were all wearing the burqa and they in the company of their Martin or male companion escort i sat on the edge of the marketplace and watched and there were lots of Taliban around and people seemed very excited and very happy they didn't seem as though they were about to be bombed by the most powerful nation in the world people seemed relaxed and I was quite surprised our party then went with provisions to a tiny village not even the size of this hole and we went into the village and there was lots of tears and laughter as one of their own had returned and he brought with him his cousin from the end WFP his wife his children and then they said well who's that pointing at me and he told them he told them in posh - I didn't understand the language but I could tell from the reaction that they were not at all happy why in earth have you brought a westerner into our midst at a time of war that day the Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Omar had just announced that anyone helping a westerner would be executed so naturally they were angry they were nervous they were agitated but within half an hour the natural exuberance and hospitality and curiosity of the Afghan people overcame the villages and they started talking to me the first was a young girl in her 20s and I said what do you think about this impending war and she said I am so angry I should be in a hospital by now qualified as a doctor ready to help my people ready to save lives people are going to be wounded in this war and I could help and save them and I said so what is your problem she said my training was stopped a couple of years ago the Taliban closed down the training center and sent all the instructors home and Here I am now back home rotting away in this village when I should be helping my people and I felt very sorry for her and I could feel her frustration here was a young ambitious girl and her life seemed to have been put in limbo just then her elder brother came in and he through the translator started talking and he also had been training to be a doctor at the very same Medical School and when it had closed down for financial reasons he too had been sent home so it wasn't just the girl who has been affected her brother was as well and as we were communicating with the help of the translator an Afghan lady walked in and she looked at me very carefully and she put her hands on her hips and she really looked me up and down and then she said through the translator have you any children and I said yes I have a daughter she said just one and I said yes just one and she pushed me very strong I lost my balance and went the other way and she said you English and American women you are all so pathetic all you can ever have is one or two children me I can have 15 and when you run out of your boy soldiers I will be producing more don't think that Afghan women are shy retiring creatures and I thought well if this is what the women are like what on earth of the men like and I said but aren't you afraid of America of American soldiers she said dare one American soldier come into my village and I will get those pots and pans and I will fight him back myself and I thought she probably would then she said look I'm really sorry about this mishap we're very sorry but this mishap in New York it has nothing to do with us and she kept calling 911 and mishap and I thought you know this is really provocative this is so offensive this is insulting six thousand plus people have died that's what we thought at the time and you're calling it and miss her and then I realized that under the Taliban televisions were banned nobody saw the dramatic images that we saw which were played on our TVs every day day in day out for more than two three weeks whipping up the anger in the hysteria in the fear watching the towers being hit the towers imploding they didn't see any of that they lived in single-story buildings so trying to convey to them the full horror of someone trying to jump from the hundred and first floor rather than face the inferno inside was very very difficult and that is why the Afghan people referred to 911 as a mishap but she said we're very sad but what has this got to do with us why do the Americans want to bomb us we didn't do that and her argument had some logic to it as the afternoon progress take a tell that people were getting more and more nervous by my presence the village and we took some photographs after some persuasion and then we left we thought we head back early but by the time we got back to Tolkien the gates had closed these great big metal gates and we couldn't get through apparently Pakistan had sealed the border they weren't letting anybody in or out we stayed overnight and the next morning we went back to the area of Tolkien and again the gates were closed and I said to my guides if I don't get back by a certain time my news editor will raise the alarm and there will be all sorts of panic and one of the guides said well we can go through a smuggling route and my eyes lit up at this I thought this is very exciting this will give me something to write about and add to the humanitarian report that I will be doing and I said great okay and I imagined that we'd be going through narrow mountain passes and ducking from Bush to Bush and it would be really exciting because the border with Afghanistan is about 1,400 kilometers long and there are said to be about 300-400 smuggling routes so you can imagine how porous the border is and so we went to this area called our barber but there was nothing secretive about it in fact there was probably more people in dour barber than there are in this room tonight there were camel traders there were donkey traders there were people selling refreshments people selling carpets there were Afghan families with all their goods packed into hand carts heading towards Pakistan unable to bear facing yet another war in their country wanting to get to this safety of Pakistan and there were of young men striding over from Pakistan looking for Taliban recruiting officers because they wanted to sign up and fight with the Taliban against the Great Satan as they referred to America by this time the Afghan shoes I had been wearing were cutting into my feet and they were bleeding and saw and I complained and one of my guides said well we're only ten minutes away from the border but we can go by donkey and he said can you ride a donkey I thought can I ride a donkey you know I can ride a horse I can jump with a horse look at these donkeys they're smaller they're the same shape and size it's same shape you know and they they look more or less the same but they're smaller probably easier to control of course I can ride a donkey and so we set off and did a deal with this man I never understood how we were hiring it how he was going to get it back but he was happy to part with the donkey and I got on its back now I don't know if it's sensed that it had an infidel on its back or what but it just bolted and it tore through this area and my feet were waving my arms were waving the winds caught the burqa that I was wearing and billowed the burqa which made the creature even more frightened and it run even faster I was screaming my arms like this I must have looked like a giant but trying to balance on this wretched beast which was out of control and as I move forward to try and get hold of the reins just to stop it the one piece of equipment that I had taken with me a camera band under the Taliban slipped out of the folds of my burqa right into the passing view of a Taliban soldier he saw this and went crazy now I don't know whether the donkey stopped and threw me off whether he stopped the donkey and pulled me off what happened I really can't remember all I remember is hitting the ground at a great rate of speed and then picking myself up and as I drew myself up I looked straight into the face of this Taliban soldier through the grille of my burqa and he was screaming and shouting at me when I got back to London some of my girlfriends said what was going through your mind at that precise moment when you knew the game was up and I said well for a nanosecond and I said it was a nanosecond I looked at this Taliban soldier and I thought my goodness you're gorgeous he had the most amazing green emerald eyes very high cheekbones and a great big beard with a life of its own very very striking but as I say it was a nanosecond and then I thought oh I've been caught so I took my camera off and I handed it to him and then I close my eyes waiting to be shot in the head and when I opened my eyes after a few seconds he'd gone he'd gone over to the man who hired the donkeys he wanted to know who is in charge of this woman and then he would get to the bottom of the camera I was delighted I thought I can get away he still doesn't realize that there's a westerner under the burka and I turned and went to attach myself to another group to follow them over the border and as I walked away I looked behind and by this time a crowd of about a hundred men had surrounded my two guides and the soldier was in the middle and he's screaming and shouting and waving the camera at him one of the guides had been smacked across the face and he had a bloody nose and the other one was trying to calm down the situation and I looked and I thought I can't leave them behind although we had made an agreement that if things did go pear-shaped none of us knew each other I couldn't abandon them and so I went back and I tried to push my way through these very angry men and they pushed me back this was man's business it had nothing to do with a woman so in the end I removed my burqa and sat in a very loud voice will somebody let me through you could have heard a pin drop and then there was a parting like the Red Sea as I walked towards the handsome soldier who by this time was looking really gormless because his jaw just dropped as he saw a westerner a blond-haired blue-eyed come towards him and I thought he is going to be so happy to have got his hands on a westerner that he'll forget all about my two guides and as I walked I shot them a sideways glance and I could see by the full horror on their face that just when they thought things couldn't get any worse they had I had emerged I went up to the soldier demanded the return of my camera and once he'd recovered he got the three of us and we were bundled into a vehicle and taken off in the direction of Jalalabad during the jurnee the driver in the Taliban soldier had a very fierce exchange and they kept looking back at me and arguing and looking back and suddenly the driver did an emergency stop the soldier asked me to get out of the car and then he took me to this raised piece of ground and asked me to stand on it from the way he was motioning so I stood on this raised piece of ground and then he went off he went marching off to my left and I thought where's he gone and I'm standing there rigid with fear then move on this little tiny hill and I'm looking around and then I all I can see are stones and pebbles and rocks and I thought this is the stoning corner I'm going to be stoned he's gone off to get a crowd he's probably gone off somewhere to say hey I've got a westerner stoning in ten minutes so I'm standing there and I'm looking down and all I could see was blood-red nail varnish coming up from my toes I'd lost my socks and shoes and the melee and I thought oh no nail varnish is banned under the Taliban if they see my toes they'll probably chop them off one by one so I try to cover my toes as well and I don't know what it is about Afghanistan the place can be deserted one minute and in the next 20 seconds you can have a crowd and about 20 seconds later they were about 80 scary-looking men staring back at me and they were getting closer and closer of course I'm thinking that they're getting closer and closer so they can take a good aim when the stoning starts and I'm looking round at them and trying to find a kind face maybe a hero somebody who we'll come to my defense and I couldn't see one everybody just looked really hostile of course the reason why they were getting closer and closer was to have a better look because in Taliban ruled Afghanistan no man saw another woman's face unless she was a mother a sister or a daughter or a close female relative so seeing me would be a bit like seen a panda in the zoo for the first time so they were getting closer of course I'm thinking they're getting closer so they can take aim when the stoning starts I mean we can laugh about it now but I really thought that the final minutes of my life were being played out in this godforsaken area and as I looked around they say that your life flashes before you mine didn't I'm just thinking how can I get out of this situation and then I remembered my time as a Sunday school teacher and there was a biblical scene where Jesus had said at a stoning let him without sin cast the first stone so I thought right I'm going to say that of course it never occurred to me they wouldn't be able to understand me but I thought no I'm going to say ok then bring it on but let him without sin cast the first stone and so I'm playing this out in my mind and then I'm looking round and I thought no this probably some pious so-and-so at the back saying that's me and he'll start the stoning so all of this is going through my mind when suddenly the Taliban soldier returns and he has with him a woman wearing a burqa she comes up behind me and turns me round very briskly and starts to frisk me and I thought oh they're not going to kill me well not just yet anyway they're trying to find out if I'm carrying any weapons and isn't it strange that he's gone off to get a woman you know why wouldn't he just search me himself obviously showing more courtesy than British police and so all the fear that I had felt and the terror just melted away with relief and then I became very angry those men had made me feel as though I was going to die so I pulled away from the Afghan woman and I swung rounded these wretched men and I was wearing I want you to picture the scene my burger had gone but I was wearing a shalwar kameez the trousers and an orange dress down to the knees and ice when rounded these men very angry and I said I am NOT carrying any weapons and to emphasize this I picked up the hem of my dress and said look well there was a collective sharp intake of breath and then they all turned round and women so the devil was snapping at their heels I don't know if any of you have seen the carrion film where the Scottish regiment lifted their kilts at the natives and they run off but it was the same effect of course this was highly inappropriate behavior for a woman in Afghanistan as I was to find out and the lady wearing the burka swung me back round and worked me across the face she was in such a state of shock at this vulgar display anyway having established that I'm not carrying any weapons I was then bundled back into the car and driven off to Jalalabad I was taken into the intelligence headquarters and introduced to the head of intelligence who understood a little bit of English I apologized for causing any inconvenience and he asked me to write down my personal details and telephone contacts to prove that I was a journalist after I had done that he said we are about to eat you must have something to eat and I said well that's very kind but I need to use the telephone first and he said no you can't use the phone so I said in that case I won't eat either as a guest or a prisoner of the Taliban until I can use the phone and what started then was the war of attrition which was to last ten days now you would think that the most evil brutal regime in the world couldn't care less if one of their prisoners had gone on hunger strike but these men were very very upset despite my protests saying I'm not eating every morning noon and night they would bring me food they would lay out a cloth on the floor beautiful carpeted floor by the way and they would put down some bread some stew you and some rice and they would bring in a jug of water and a bowl and they would wash my hands and they would tell me in broken English you were our sister you were our guest we want you to be happy and I thought what sort of evil brutal regime is this don't they understand the job description and I'm thinking you know this is just a trick they're trying to soften me up and then the really bad guys will come in with the electrodes in fact isn't it strange everything that I thought would have happened to me under this so-called savage primitive regime happened to prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Guantanamo Bay and other US holding facilities which always prompts me to say thank God I was captured by the most evil brutal regime in the world and not by the Americans by the third day they called the doctor not that I was feeling unwell at all but they called the doctor and he came a little man who trained in Germany and he looked in my eyes my ear to my pulse looked in my mouth and I thought they'd do this don't they on death row in Texas just before they're going to execute somebody they'd like to make sure that they're fit and healthy and then he took my blood pressure and something bothered him because he then took it again and I said yes I know I have high blood pressure and he said no you don't your blood pressure is normal so don't be so ridiculous it can't be normal you know I'm about to be killed by the Taliban how on earth is my blood pressure normal and he said look and he did it again and it was normal I said they were three days with the Taliban and you've cured my blood pressure thank you very much on the fifth day there was a little guy called Hamid the doctor son actually who acted as the translator and he came running into my room very very excited he said you were on the front page of the papers and he brought in the weekly paper from Jalalabad and although photographs were banned under the Taliban there were two pictures of me from Reuters on the front page with a little story and headlines that took over half the page the headlines looked longer than the story and I said what does the headline say and he read it out and he said it says the Taliban has cured Yvonne Ridley's blood-pressure and she's very happy not the catchiest of headlines during those six days in Jalalabad a procession a very scary fierce looking man came into the room and through Hamid asked me questions and the interrogations would go on and on until maybe eight nine o'clock at night they never physically threatened me the worst thing that they said to me was if you don't tell us the truth you will be here for 20 years I assured them that they would get sick long before I did and I had decided on quite a risky strategy really I had decided to be the prisoner from hell I had bought into the propaganda you see that this was the most evil brutal regime in the world and it didn't matter what I said or did they were going to kill me at the end of the day when they wanted to and so I just thought if I'm nice they're gonna kill me if I'm nasty they're gonna kill me well I'm just going to go down fighting and so I was very abusive and aggressive and the harder I pushed them the nicer they were and they would say why are you angry you were our guest you were our sister Hamid had to translate my words and one day he said to me I am terrified of these people and you should be as well and it's not nice for me to translate your words I get scared on the sixth day Hamid came to see me and his face was nearly black with fear his mouth was so dry he could hardly talk and he said you have a very important visitor and I said who is it he said I can't tell you but you must be respectful I said well who is it is it mullah omar and he said please just be respectful you have to show some respect this is a very very important person so I'm thinking I wonder who it can be ten minutes later there was a knock on the door although I was the prisoner I had my own key and so I unlocked the door opened it Hamid stood aside and there in front of me was a man who made my blood run cold the hair on the back of my neck lifted for six days I had avoided talking about religion and there in front of me was a religious cleric and Malana and everything in Afghanistan is dirty ripped and torn and dusty he was wearing an immaculate ivory gown one which went right down to the ground the talibans clothes were above their uncles this guy's clothes were right down to the ground you couldn't see his feet and he had a great big ivory turban a very modest beard by Afghan standards very light brown modest beard and light brown eyes and he had beads which he moved like rosary beads which he moved to at a time and there was something else about him that I thought was weird and when I mentioned it to my first Muslim crowd a few of them went alhamdulillah when I told them I said there was something really weird about this guy he had a shine on his face it was like a light on the inside coming out I've never seen anything like it before and I was told by my Muslim friends back in London this is the newer the light that comes out of somebody who is very pious very practicing a very good person I didn't know that at the time I just thought there's something weird and spooky about this guy after I recovered I moved aside and invited him into my room and he was so graceful and elegance he didn't even seem to walk he just glided in and glided down and I sat opposite him and Hamid acted as the translator and he said what is your religion and I thought oh here we go I said I'm a Christian he said yes but what sort of Christian are you a Roman Catholic are you a Protestant I said I'm a Protestant from the Church of England and he's smiling and moving his beads and he said and what do you think of Islam oh I said it's fantastic it's absolutely wonderful of course I knew nothing about Islam very little and the little that I knew was totally wrong as it turned out and I went off in praise for two minutes of this faith that I knew so little about and he smiled and he moved his beads and then when I finally stopped running out of adjectives he said Islam is a beautiful religion I couldn't agree more and then again I run off in praise of Islam and he smiled as he listened and Hamid translated and I said do you know the people round here are so passionate about their faith that they pray five times a day I know because I've watched and counted it and he looked he must have thought you stupid woman but I didn't really eyes that Muslims are expected to pray five times a day so he moved his beads and then he said so you would like to convert and I thought he's led me into a blind alley here if I say yes I'll convert he'll accuse me have been fickle and insincere and he'll say take her away and have her stoned if I say no I'm not interested he'll say how dare you insult Islam take her away and Tavis stoned so I'm trying to come up with the right answer and then in the end I said look I can't make such a life-changing decision while I'm in prison but if you let me go I promise I will read the Quran and I will study Islam and he smiled and he didn't say anything more and he rose up and he glided out Hamid went scuttling after him and he returned a few minutes later and he said you're going you're going home on a red crescent plane well I punched the air and congratulated myself for having dealt with this mallanna this religious man in such a clever way and within a few minutes I the little goods that I had accrued were in a plastic bag and off I was in a truck heading for Kabul seven hours later after a dusty bumpy ride we came into Kabul and drove straight past the airport but I was okay I just thought well there are other Westerners being held by the Taliban we're probably going to pick them up all I know is that I'm going home on a Red Crescent plane that night I was to find out another aspect to the character of the Afghan people they don't like giving you bad news they don't like telling you anything that will upset you or cause an adverse reaction and so we drove past the airport and then we pulled into a really grim prison everything that you would imagine a third-world prison to be and I was asked to get out and I got out and we walked down this dark dingy corridor and then they pushed open this little metal door with a little spy hole in it and they're sitting on a concrete floor were two Afghan women one with a babe in arms and the other one heavily pregnant and they said tonight you will stay here and I said no no no no you've made a mistake I am going home on a Red Crescent plane of course the thing is when you lead someone on you have to deliver the bad news at some point and so the bad news was delivered to me then you're going nowhere you were a bad woman you entered our country illegally without a passport you have to be punished I screamed and shouted there was no way I was going to go into this cell and to get me out and get me to the airport and I said to them you can't do this to me I'm British and they smiled just then another cell door opened and six women wearing hijabs came out and one of them said to me are you from the Red Cross I said you speak English and she said well I'm Australian these three are Germans and the other two are Americans and I went oh my god you're the Christians the charity workers who were locked up for trying to convert Muslims to Christianity and they said yes and I said look this way a terrible mistake I'm supposed to be going home on a Red Crescent plane will you tell these people and the women all spoke the language and I could tell by the heated conversation and the expressions on everyone's face that I was going nowhere that night certainly not on a red crescent plane Deanna Thomas the Australian girl said to me look why don't you stay in our cell tonight and then we can sort this mess out later and in truth I hadn't had any female company for over six days these girls spoke my language furthermore if I ever got out of this hellhole I might have an even better story to tell so I said yes okay and I followed them into their cell and I looked around and it was so grim it's everything you would think a third-world prison to be and suddenly I broke down and I started to cry the first tears that I had cried since my captivity and I said well the Taliban have finally broken me and amid the sobbing I felt for my cigarettes because although cigarettes were banned under the Taliban when they realized I smoked they gave me lots of cigarettes so I pulled out my cigarettes and I was about to light up when I just said oh does anybody mind if I smoke and the tears were coming down and I'm sobbing and about to light my cigarette when they all said yes this is a no smoking cell how could I find the only no smoking cell in Asia how unlucky can you get they said look if you must smoke go outside into the courtyard we're about to have a meeting suddenly my nicotine craving went and I said a meeting and they said yes we have two meetings a day and I'm looking round and thinking what happens round here that they have two meetings a day huh it's the escape committee they are digging a tunnel and this is a progress report so I said do you mind if I listen in to your meeting and they said no not at all so I suddenly forgot about my cigarettes for the time being and I sat on the edge of this bunk bed and the six girls sat in a circle on the floor and then they pulled out their Bibles and I'm thinking I don't believe this they have been charged under Sharia law with trying to convert Muslims to Christianity they're in serious trouble they could be executed and now they get in their Bibles out and I'm looking at the door expecting the Taliban to come bursting in and beat them up or do something horrible to them and nothing happened of course as I did read the Koran later it states quite specifically that we must as Muslims protect people of the book ie Jews and Christians and we must allow them to carry on and carry out and perform their faiths and this is exactly what the Taliban were allowing the Christians to do although I didn't realize it at the time so they read from the Bible very loudly a passage appropriate to their position and after 20 minutes they put their Bibles down and pulled out hand written pieces of paper and then they started to sing now I can tell you as you know I was a practicing Christian in those days and when I say practicing I probably went to church maybe twice a month which in some people's eyes is bordering on fanaticism and we would sing you know these Victorian hymns and and they started singing not victorian hymns we are talking very loud very robust happy-clappy full-on southern baptist style hallelujah type singing so this started and at that point I went outside into the courtyard and I smoked three cigarettes of the trot the is on the call to prayer started and I thought I don't believe it I've got Muslims on that side of the wall Christian fundamentalists in that cell no wonder that religious cleric was smiling as they left me he probably thought she won't convert well feed her to the Christians although I make fun of them I have to say that there that those six girls were incredibly strong in their faith did get them through their ordeal which lasted much much longer than mine after they'd finished singing they then started praying and again it was really full-on in-your-face hallelujah type praying in fact at one point they were all shouting different things and at one point I could hear one of the girls I think it was the American girl Heather shouting Lord Jesus show me the way out of here and I have a very gallows sense of humor and I felt like shouting back straight down the corridor turn left but there's a great big Talib there that night I slept on this concrete floor with a very wafer thin mattress and when I woke up the next morning I was given a change of clothes in fact I'm wearing the prison clothes now nobody put me in an orange jumpsuit shaved chuckles or abused me or rape me or sodomized me or videoed me for the gratification or pleasure of others later on as you can see from what I'm saying my experience was completely different to those who fell into the hands of the Americans so that morning a new change of clothes so I set about washing the old ones and one of the German girls took me into the courtyard and gave me a metal bucket and took me to a hand pump and she said you can get your water from there and I'm looking at this contraption which looked as old had come from one of those old western movies and I started cranking it and eventually some water came out and I'm saying this is amazing how did they heat it underground and she started laughing she said it's cold I was given a pumice stone and some soap flakes and and I set about washing my clothes and I then hung them on the washing line in the prison courtyard within five minutes I'm sitting trying to enjoy the last days of the summer Sun and the prison governor came in a great big man with a huge beard and really a very scary-looking dude and he came in and in broken English he said to me he growls at me remove those garments and I'm looking I said it's my washing remove them now and I said I can't it's my washing I am washing my clothes this is a washing line we dry our clothes on the washing line well cover them up and I'm looking I said you stew but man you've obviously never done the washing in your life how on earth will it dry if it's covered up so he stood there for a couple of moments and then he said well take those items down and he looked the other way and sort of pointed and I realized he was talking about my underwear and I said no this is the female wing of the prison if you don't like what you see clear off he said remove them and I said no if you don't like them you remove them and I thought he was going to explode on the spot he then went storming off and he returned fifteen minutes later with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan these people are about to be bombed by the most powerful country on Earth and a diplomatic incident was unfolding as a result of my underwear I don't want to embarrass the men here that I mean we're not talking anything small salacious and lacy we're talking big comfortable Bridget Jones so the deputy foreign minister said to me will you please remove your undergarments from the line and I said look this is the female wing of the prison there are no male prisoners the only men around at the moment are you two if you clear off there will be no men by the time they're dried nobody's going to be any the wiser he said yes but the Taliban soldiers live above the female wing of the prison and if they look out and see those things they'll have impure thoughts I'm looking at my underwear in a new light now I said there's a very easy solution to this he said I knew there would be I said tell your men not to look out of the window no no that's impossible I thought I cannot believe this you know America didn't need to fly over in b-52s and bomb these people they should have just parachuted in a regiment of women soldiers waving their end away and the Taliban would have gone but it gives you a remarkable insight into the modesty of these people and the way they felt about issues like women's underwear so the argument continued and went on long after the clothes had dried and nobody emerged as a real winner but I did get my dry clothes back the next day the ninth day I was feeling really crotchety I'd had three or four really rousing sessions with the the the Christian services and in fact you know although the Taliban had banned singing and they banned music they allowed them to sing but they drew the line at music and I am eternally grateful to this day that they confiscated their tambourines and guitars but um so I'm feeling really wretched and bad-tempered and thinking I'm never going to get out of this place I can't take much more of this and the Deputy Foreign Minister returned with his sidekick a man I called the smiling assassin and he said we want to ask you a few more questions and I said no I'm done with answering any more questions I'm finished with you people I've had enough and I then launched into a series of insults and curses and swearing and then I rounded it off with something that I've never done in my life before I've never done since and you would get sent off a football pitch for doing it I spotted them and then I went into my cell and I started shaking and a couple of the Christian girls said did you just do what we thought you did and I said yes I've gone beyond the line I've gone beyond the wire I've pushed it and pushed it and I'm in serious trouble now I can sense it and just then one of the female prison officers came in and which was translated for me later and she said tell the English woman she is going to be flogged because she cannot do this to high-ranking people so I'm standing there rigid with fear cursing me and my big mouth and wondering is there going to be a public flogging will al Jazeera be there to record it you know what what is what is going to happen and I'm standing there rigid with fear and about 10-15 minutes later we heard the gates open in the courtyard and Heather one of the American girls came running in and she said they've returned Yvonne is going to be flogged and just then three of the Christians threw themselves down at me and grabbed onto my clothes and started saying Lord Jesus don't let Yvonne feel any pain and I'm standing there looking at them thinking you know you're making it worse and just then the smiling assassin walked in and he had in his hand the one thing that I wanted the very thing I had gone on hunger strike for nine days earlier he had in his hand a satellite phone and he strutted around the cell and showed off this satellite phone and he said all of you all of you can ring home you can all ring your families today apart from her the English woman she's horrible and she spotted us and she has to be punished so it's interesting this is how the most evil brutal regime in the world decided to punish me they allowed my cell mates to ring home which was fantastic for the Germans they hadn't and all of them they hadn't spoken to their family for two months it was an opportunity to ring home and say look we're okay were we're holding out and then one of the German girls went to the smilin assassin and made a special plea and said look Yvonne needs to talk to her daughter please let her call home and he said no she's a horrible woman she has to be punished and as I say that was my punishment which I looking back think can you know shows a degree of wisdom and insight on their part which is more than can be said for my behavior and my only mitigation is look I hadn't eaten for nine days and and I was starting to get fractures that afternoon the senior officers returned and they removed me without warning got my things together and said you're going and then they took me out of the prison and upstairs into the Taliban sleeping quarters and one of the senior officers had vacated his room and said you complained about the prison downstairs is this good enough for you and it was a very nice room by Afghan standards and he said tomorrow you will go home inshallah and I said what is this inshallah you keep using at the end of every sentence and it never ever happens of course I now know inshaallah means god willing and they put me in this room they gave me the key I locked myself in I had a fantastic view over the city of Kabul looking right up to Kabul hill where all the anti-aircraft units were and I sat on the bed contemplating my future wondering if and when I'd ever get out they kept saying tomorrow you will go home inshallah but inshallah it never happened and so I was wondering how genuine they actually were why would they remove me from the Christians was this my last night on earth would they execute me tomorrow I really didn't know all of this was going through my mind and then suddenly there was a huge rip as though somebody had just torn the sky open and there was a great big light and it was the start of the war that night America and Britain dropped 50 cruise missiles on Kabul you can hear a cruise missile from 20 miles away these were coming within quarter of a mile of the prison I had covered walls before and I don't know why it had not occurred to me then but it certainly occurred to me that night these bombs don't discriminate there's nowhere to run there's nowhere to hide civilian military man woman child these bombs cannot tell the difference I'm going to be blown apart by a British bomb I've got no doubt Tony Blair will blame the Taliban and that will be the end of that and it was truly terrifying and I also thought there is no way the Taliban will let me go now absolutely no way at all and the next morning there was a knock on my door and I was told please there is a vehicle outside we are going to release you I couldn't believe it but sure enough there was a vehicle they put me in it we drove down from Kabul through Jalalabad down to talk him and eventually after some shenanigans I was handed over to the Pakistan asara and as I walked back across no-man's land the camera lights went ER and the journalists started shouting how did the Taliban treat you and in truth up until the point that I was released I still didn't trust them one inch and I thought everything that they were trying to do had a hidden motive it was only at the point that they released me that I thought you know what they were quite an honorable bunch of guys so when this journalist shouted at me how did the Taliban treat you I thought for a while and then I said with respect and courtesy this is not what the Western media wanted the Western media wanted Abu Ghraib tales they wanted abuse rape torture they wanted to see scars they wanted to see tears there was nothing nothing I could give them other than the truth and sadly for some people the truth is never enough when I got back to London about two weeks later one of my guides on the Pakistan side called me and he said Madan the village that you visited has been bombed by the Americans that was the village karma which is smaller than this hall we're in now and I said look Pasha I know these terrible things happen in the fog of war and it's awful but these accidents do happen and he said but madam how can you accidentally bomb a village the size of karma three days running now then the Americans were telling us all about their strategic strikes there surgical strikes there b-52 bombers come in at 30,000 feet karma wouldn't have even looked like a dot from 30,000 feet it was quite clear to me that this was indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and in many ways the Taliban were to blame because they kicked out all of the Western journalists whatever you think about journalists we do have our functions in our role we are the eyes the ears the witnesses and by kicking out all of the Western journalists they ensured that Britain and America could and would bomb indiscriminately across the country slaughtering innocent civilians which they did that propelled me into the anti-war movement and made me become very very active as an anti-war campaigner at that same time I remembered the promise that I had given to the religious cleric and I thought well against all the odds they kept their word while a hung on to the Christians they let me go and really I should keep my promise now and I started to read the Koran very soon groups of Muslims found out and somebody gave me a wonderful English translation by a Asif Ali with a an index in the back so I thought great I'll get this over and done with very quickly I'm going to cherry-pick and I'm going to read all about the subjugation and oppression of women and what promotes people to slam planes into towers so I started cherry-picking and going through all the women's issues and then I had other Islamic literature to support my reading of the I couldn't believe what I was reading the Koran makes it perfectly clear crystal clear no two ways about it women are equal in spirituality Worth and education furthermore the first convert to Islam was a woman the first martyr to Islam was a woman women played major roles right from day one in Islam they fought alongside the man the Prophet peace be upon him picked out one particular woman and singled her out for praise during a battle the Battle of a herd and he said everywhere I looked this woman was there protecting me fighting with me fighting alongside me I thought where have we got this idea that women are oppressed and subjugated where do we get it from who put the poison in our minds I then looked at property rights inheritance rights divorce rights what's yours is yours what's his is half of yours yeah brilliant much of it could have been written by a Californian lawyer in fact this is from where they probably get their inspiration all these tales and the tabloids about the superstars having prenuptial contracts and teams of lawyers drawing up and thrashing out these prenuptial contracts they were available to Muslim women from day one and so I began to see Islam in a totally different light and I thought yes okay this is great but what are the people like and so I went out into the Muslim communities specifically to meet the sisters and it didn't matter where I went in the world whether it was Pakistan in then or whether it was Saudi or Canada or America or Australia and now New Zealand the Muslim women I have met whether they have been formally educated or not or resilient strong politicized internationally aware multi-skilled multi-talented a few years ago I would have looked in this room and picked out everyone wearing a hijab and out of thought oh look at those poor oppressed women how did they manage to sneak out of the home to come here now I'm looking and I'm trying to work out who is the engineer who is the doctor who is the lawyer who is the teacher who is doing the PhD who's doing the MA who's raising kids at the same time supporting their man running a business a charity who is the backbone of the community I see incredibly diverse women and I remember a sister in Canada who said to me Yvonne my head might be covered but my mind is not and the most valuable lesson that I learned from the sisters that I met is never ever again will I judge a person's freedoms and liberties by the length of their skirt so this was wonderful the other thing that I learned about the Muslim community is it has an incredibly gossipy network and I could visit somebody in Glasgow one day and by the next morning I get a phone call from somebody in Karachi saying I hear you were in Scotland how did it go the communication is amazing but sometimes there were Chinese whispers and people had false information that I had taken my Shahada the oath to become a Muslim and I remember one day I'm sure many of you in this hall will have at least heard the name one day I got a phone call from Sheikh Abu Hamza al-masri the fire and brimstone cleric from Finsbury Park mosque who has currently detained at Her Majesty's pleasure in Belmarsh and he run Nia and he said sister Yvonne welcome to Islam and I said well thank you very much however I hate to disappoint you but you're a wee bit premature I haven't taken my Shahada yet but you know I will get there inshallah and he said well take your time this is going to be the most important decision you ever make in your life don't be rushed into it don't be pressurised into it make sure that you read as much as you can be convinced before you take your Shahada we are all making dawah prayer for you and I thought I can't believe that this is the fire in brimstone cleric from Finsbury Park mosque the tabloids love to hate him because of his hooks and his eyepatch and they really have demonized him and I said well thank you very much for your understanding I will keep you informed as my progress and I was just about to close the line when he said well it's just one thing I want you to know and I said well what's that he said well if you go out tomorrow and you're hit by a bus you will go straight down I said thank you and close the line and that made me nervous it made me very nervous so I took a copy of the Shahada and I carried it round with me and I would address meetings like this and I would say look if you come across an accident and you hear someone shouting for two Muslim witnesses please come running fast because it's me trying to get in before it's too late happily there was no such accident and on June the 30th in 2003 at 11:30 in the morning I took my Shahada and declared my belief that there is only one God and that Muhammad peace be upon him is his messenger and I joined then what I consider to be the biggest and the best family in the world and I know that wherever I go in the world it doesn't matter how remote the places I will meet brothers and sisters who will give me their love and support and help if I need it and that is very important to me I was also lucky enough in January this year to go on Hajj the annual pilgrimage which Muslims are required to do at least once in their life as I say the Saudi women don't think for one minute that they're oppressed or subjugated they're like a tightly coiled spring and they are really ready to launch into the political scene in Saudi Arabia there were elections earlier this year women weren't allowed to vote let me tell you I really feel that the next elections not only be will women be voting they will be standing as well these women are really really remarkable and as I say they're in the wings and they're ready to launch unfortunately because of Saudis restrictive media rules we hardly get to find out any real news that is happening there but these sisters from Jeddah told me how distressed they were during the Second Intifada the uprising in Palestine how distressed they were and they had been discussing this in the mosque after Friday prayers and they wanted to show their solidarity with their Palestinian sisters so they did something that is for biddin in Saudi they had a spontaneous demonstration and they shouted and demonstrated and the police were called because of this public disorder and the police moved in and one of the the main women stood in front of the police and she said dare one of you touch us we are Saudi women and you cannot touch us and the police sprung back and they were wondering what on earth are we going to do with these women we can't have them demonstrating but they're right we can't manhandle them and cut them off to jail either and there was this standoff for about half an hour as the women continued with their protest in the end the police chief had a better idea and they went and arrested all their husbands instead they took them to the station and they said the next time their wives did this they would be charged which is a wonderful tale so that was some Hajj in January obviously you're all aware of the London bombings I live in central London we were shocked by the ferocity of the atrocity but not surprised the anti-war movement and the political party I belong to called respect which is led by George Galloway MP had said long before the first bombs dropped on Baghdad we told Tony Blair if you take us into a war with Iraq our security will vanish London will become a target in his arrogance he dismissed us he dismissed the fears of two million people who marched in London he would rather take his orders from Washington really I salute New Zealand in its strength and determination to stand up to America over many different issues that's stand it should be me applauding you that stand has made New Zealand one of the safest places on earth in terms of security and certainly your anti-nuclear stance is admirable beware of siren calls from politicians like Winston Peters who thrive only on hate you have a very important election coming up soon I can't tell you how to vote but just be wary of those who would want to stand shoulder to shoulder with George Bush because you will end up in serious trouble like we have in Britain thank you very much for listening to me I am really looking forward to hearing your questions and observations as I say to the non-muslims here tonight I am NOT Islam's answer to Billy Graham I am NOT here to get you to convert but if you are interested in learning a little bit more about Islam for your own benefit not for any other reason there's some books outside which you're welcome to take away thank you very much for being a terrific audience thank you you

Channel: One Islam Productions

Views: 502,903

Rating: 4.8626366 out of 5

Keywords: Yvonne, Ridley, Convert, taliban, revert, islam, islamic, jihad, capture, war, afghanistan, 911, September, 11, 2001, osama, bin, laden, terrorism, terror, Bush, George, Quran, Cheney, America, Military, Cia, Muhammad, Afghanistan

Id: nFqtZd0y_0g

Length: 89min 47sec (5387 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 02 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/Dramatic_End_883]

Nice post

[u/TraditionalSetting33]

Please share this video as much as possible to dispelled the myths against the talibans and Islam.

[u/TraditionalSetting33]

Please post this under the r/unexpected page because that’s where I see hatred against Islam.

[u/JuicyRatCum]

Nice more people needs to see this

[u/Steve1924]

Can someone sum up the video, please.