if you want to. know. or. the. budget we talk about trouble he's gonna demystified so political space if you weren't clear before like these folks are no better than us so you know i you know you can reach out to friends say you know take responsibility maybe run for office at the end of the day you know i don't see how we've we've allowed a system where these people get away with you know mis representing us why not step

up and do it yourself. welcome to alex salmond show and to be a special program and someone who shot to international fame some 20 years ago. in 2001 this investigative journalist was captured by the taliban in afghanistan just as the american made bombing campaign started anti-life in the fall however once released her life's journey took a surprising direction she converted to islam and became an avid critic of western foreign. the see in the war on terror i'm just undertaken speaking to us throughout

the world has been called something close to celebrity and the islamic world and it to size did it was for to be more specific knowledge of a woman in this slum a quote by islam online after entering domestic u.k. politics as chair of the briefly successful solidarity party she moved to scotland in 2014 to support the cause of scottish independence now she's back in the public eye with the launch of a new book the caledonians however once again the topic represents something of a surprise alice caught up with the boy in the studio. well few people in the last generation a father's fascinating a life in journalism and political activism than yvonne 'd ridley my guest for today yvonne welcome to the examined show thank you very much alex so i was going to go on to this new boot that you're florence which i find fascinating but wallace let's start at the beginning you're

a county durham last and the area of steel mining in heavy industry and that's where you were brought up in the 1960 s. how did that shape your political attitude well you know i've got a working class d.n.a. coursing through me and the solidarity and unity in hardship. was the trademark of the working classes and so it really day it shaped my life so you went into a pretty early age into journalism as a as a female journalist not the easiest profession to break into and in the 1980 s. but you became an editor one of the 1st female lead with those of of thomson regional newspapers or behind how did that work or i've been working as a journalist for quite a few years and then i progressed up the career ladder and this opportunity came to just wales on sunday and i absolutely enjoyed it you know

it it was a great opportunity we put on circulation. and won awards and we did incredibly well but at that time the signs of the decline in the print industry were on the horizon the accountants were taking over the newspapers. from there i moved on to fleet street and that was a pretty hard drinking masculine male dominated culture. earn more than hell jordan you went through a ranger for newspapers working for the express group and that's what you faithfully to afghanistan to after 911 the invasion and the airstrikes from a boat to be lost there you were listening vest a good of journalist in an afghanistan framing know what the taliban was all

a boat and then kind of disaster happened what you were for a donkey yes that's right well there was 3000 journalists from around the world waiting for the war to start and we were all in pakistan and i decided that i would try and sneak into afghanistan it worked very well for 2 days but coming back i was done for by a rogue donkey i was wearing the all enveloping blue. and the only piece of equipment that i had taken in to afghanistan was a camera and when this donkey bolted the camera fell out of the folds of my right in front of a taliban soldier i just remember going up in the air and crushing to the ground and having this very angry taliban soldier screaming and shouting at me i took the the camera off my neck and handed it to this young soldier

who continued screaming and shouting and then i stood back and closed my eyes waiting to be shot and about 10 seconds later i opened my eyes again and he god he didn't realize i was a westerner he wanted to find out who is in charge of this woman and then we'll get to the bottom of this crime because cameras were forbidden and the taliban for them for followed was the most extraordinary 11 days which basically. shaped your life you are defaming 11 days in your life but what happened to you after the started to tell to get you trying to find out who you were probably trying to do what to do when they thought i was an american spy they thought i was some sort of g.i. jane character and i kept telling them that i was british and they said well

you've got this accent that we don't understand that majority from from the tribal areas and they quite like that idea with you speaking to the milingo assured you picked up some parts so. i spoke to them in english and and this young man. who spoke to me and english and he acted as the translator so then we were taken to fort a person or an encampment or what happened i was taken to the intelligence headquarters and in truth i just thought this is the end they will kill me i believed all of the propaganda. attached to them and so i just thought pointless kissing the hand that slaps you. let's just accelerate it and be the

prisoner from hell and i was hoping. that they would just take me out and shoot me and that would be the end of it and so i was the prisoner from hell so will you be interrogated will the trying to find out where were you subjected to torture me what was happening yes sir how i mean every day half a dozen of the scariest looking men. had been brought down from kabul to interview me and they all had these massive big black b. it's in these huge black turbans the more pious the person the larger the. turpin and they were very scary to to look at. it turned out that we had a real clash of culture i was ignorant of their coach they were ignorant of mine and in the end there was one incident where they just got up and walked out they

couldn't deal with me they said to me through the translator you have light and i said everything i've told you is the truth and one of them said that you have a daughter and i said well you didn't ask me if i had it all to and he said but you said you're not married just that i'm not married and he threw his arms in the air and screamed at me how can you have a daughter if you're not married and because i'm from concert and. as i said have you got the concept of divorce in this crazy world you're living in. so i explained you know about the father and we were still in touch but we were divorced and then he said why haven't you got another husband and i looked and said i have my own job i have my own car i have my own home i have my own salary why would i need

a man and the translators started this out to the rest and they just got up and had to go and they looked at me as though they found something bad on the bottom of their shoe they just couldn't deal with it but at this point your employers expressed newspapers are running up or would you call rescue mission order or that we start. a diplomatic mission and i think it was widely assumed you'd die they'll be tortured or killed or or ransom as a hostage be a human shield or something like that. both the strain the the bombing was about to start so you're right in the middle of the the on set of a huge bombardment in reality the what the tottenham were trying to do business to have you where they did journalist in the end against all the arts they did let me go my newspaper i know richard desmond

he was the publisher and people are you know he's a very marmite character but as soon as. i was arrested he sent out a team to sit down and negotiate with the taliban and. friends who were involved in. p.r. the crown took my mother to give press conferences they went right. against all government advice to say nothing keep quiet keep your head down and in the end the taliban said we are releasing the english woman on humanitarian grounds she's a very bad woman with a very bad mouth. and so i was released. while i wouldn't be critical of the foreign office what i would say

is to anybody who finds themselves or a family member in my situation is don't listen to the government don't think that doing anything when they say we're working behind the scenes just go out there and do it for you know for yourself i mean there are times where governments cannot be seen to be sitting down. with the enemy or with terrorists and negotiating but there's nothing to stop families there's nothing to stop companies of employees doing this and keeping it in. the public eye because the think that publicists he is all important because of the activities of your family and your company you shot to international stardom any concept whatsoever as you were still being held and. that your name was starr who told them or the world to judge any concept at all that you were an international celebrity

because of your confinement no idea at all no idea i was i was horrified actually because my job in london was as you said just an investigative journalist and involving a lot of undercover work and to be suddenly find that my photograph was in every single newspaper around the world. was not what i wanted you know no journalist wants to become the story was going to the police or how to be really sure they would listen was this english woman with the bad mouth the so how did the how did to go bowed to the point charlie of what happened in the end the diplomats who was in charge of me just. decided that it was safer for my security just to hand me over and so i was handed over to the pakistan authorities

questioned by them because they wanted to know the identity of the 2 guy who'd taken me in. which you know again i didn't say and my guide stated benchley get released as well and we've been and so eventually by the time. the i was handed over to the british authorities in. hour i was given a lecture by a man from the foreign office saying you know you were so badly behaved. and prison he said we are hearing these tales about you throwing things at the taliban and shouting and spitting up them and he said don't you know how to behave in prison and i said i call believe this the best that. there are 8 of the west in this in that and i'm. better place than.

absolutely all of all gridley the least from the hands of the tell about after the most extraordinary 11 days in captivity but the experience was took a life in a totally different direction join us after the break to find out what that was. we have to realize we are all living on a small fragile spaceship together and it's really no different than a bunch of people in a harsh environment trying to rely on each other to survive we are interconnected on this planet we rely on each other everywhere around the world to survive as a species. welcome back if only it was captured in 2001 by the taliban i trust already caught the public imagination since her release her life has taken some surprising turns with her

dedicated campaign against western policy towards the muslim world now she's back with a new book the caledonians and once again its subject matter if it's something of a surprise. yvonne released from the hands of the taliban but this your life the sullivan days in a totally different direction well the day before i was released the war started and i've covered wars before but i've never been bombed by britain and america and it's a truly terrifying experience and i don't know why i hadn't thought of it before i just realised bombs don't discriminate these bombs that are coming down don't know i'm british they don't know civilian and you can hear a cruise missile from 20 miles away these were coming within half a mile of the prison and i just thought. i am going to be killed but not by the

taliban but by my own country and i sort of made to part with the big fella upstairs and said if i get out of here i'm going to commit myself to the anti war movement which i did. and. in the november of 2001 i was speaking 260000 people in the. intro fog a square talking them to them about the future lity of wall and how bombs and missiles. don't serve any real purpose for peace at all so the antiwar movement against the action afghanistan was strong but nothing like the antiwar protest that was to rise 2 years later the invasion of iraq so you your involvement in the antiwar movement your conversion to islam came just about the

time that the the war in iraq the war against terror was being and loves george bush and tony blair to invade iraq so we should activities in the in the protests around. i went right across. germany talking about my experiences. other european countries and i was in scotland when the war began and i remember the students and schoolchildren in scotland were absolutely magnificent they just left their classrooms and held protests and they stopped the traffic on the 4th bridge it was there was a vast march in glasgow of course at the time of us i remember the labor party conference was being held and there's this huge march with it which convened the

polling to the labor party conference with the prime minister who was french and council and his own person in the in the conference hall with those hundreds of thousands of people say the bonding that shouldn't be in a name that a right be invaded so you were part of that protest or i. yes i told so been to iraq a few months earlier and which was obviously end of the control of the saddam regime but it was quite clear then that there were no weapons of mass destruction it was quite clear speaking to ordinary iraqis that this was not going to play well there was a lot of hostility towards the west because of the sanctions which had destroyed again entire middle class of iraq at the time and it was

clear that the last thing that the iraqis wanted was to go to war with britain and america so from your own personal perspective this time in 20032004 i just completed journey your journey from being a investigative journalist a professional journalist one of the the leading female journalists in the country into being an antiwar activist and that was a journey that you had that you had taken and carried forward after your experience of cut. i was still working as a journalist i was the 1st journalist into into janine in palestine in 2002 after the massacre there and that's when i began to realize again probably naive if this sounds naive but that's when i began to realize that powerful people in powerful places will lie and i

listened to. colin powells standing at the king david hotel in jerusalem saying i saw no evidence of a massacre in janine and that was because he never left the. king david hotel in jerusalem i went and i could smell the rotting corpses under the rubble. before i even saw those who say well you got all in poll. who most people would regard as a normal man was pressurised by the position of office to mislead and to to give a false impression i don't know what sort of pressure would make you tell such a plate and lie or better hospital american secretary of state and the exegesis of american states after the foreign policy well he has previous for it i mean this is the man who was in vietnam when he said i saw no evidence of

a massacre over my life i was only a paying my oldest now where did we hear that one your one position when you would engage in rating contributing your position ironically as a captive of the taliban had given you an international profile and you had decided even in your journalism to translate that into political activism and that led you directly into party politics because you became not just a member and not just a kind of the convenor of the respect party which was a rising as an antiwar party at that time yes well the i had been in the labor party as a teenager and in 2003 i tore up my labor party membership card and said i can't remain in this party i spoke to the wonderful tony band he said at the time don't leave there are far too many good socialists out there with no home to go to and he was right but then the respect party was

created after the war people often get confused over that and so were all of those homeless socialists gravitated around the respect party you saw the respect party as a as a home for the the. or saw as the yes yes and it became a leading figure to live under of course or a candidate because because you've actually got just european elections where you fought a parliamentary by election and rather of the phone of number correctly you know us a bit about that experience well the. vast was. quite a tough gig the. labor m.p. dennis macshane. being charged with expense fiddling all at the sun something like that and he had to stand down. the climate felt right george galloway had just been elected in bradford west so

we would try and emulate that in in rather and so this was about 200-920-1201 extension 0. it was a very tough campaign and you could see the rise of the the far right in politics which has been normalized today but so the tough campaign but i mean you performed audibly you saved your deposit which is always you know a great test for minority parties in such contests satiate your desire for parliamentary contest and you say ok i've tried it and the time it has the respect party was was 5 years old and difficulties and turmoil yes. i was becoming quite disillusioned and then i heard whispers of the scots are going for it dependence and this really excited me because you know i lived in

westminster i used to have a lot the past i could see up close and personal. the corruption and the shenanigans that were going on in westminster which made it was difficult to separate the tories from the labor party so the thought of independence really excited me in this as the s.n.p. on the rise into government led by somebody whose name escapes me at the present moment so there is a. party leading member to move to the borders of scotland as i wander the debate of all worlds yes i i moved 2011 i voted with my feet i resigned from the respect party which at that point i think was going nowhere. and. and i was reinvigorated. by this desire for independence so you've

been active in the borders of your activities on being just confined to political activism you've been taking up your pain again you know you've contributed to a number of books and obviously books and journalism but books about your time of the taliban but your latest book is quite different titled the color duty and so we can have a look at the front piece no but this is this is i was expecting a political novel of what it is is a titan traveling adventure story would that be a reasonable description it is but there are politics in there in fact there's an incident recounting margaret thatcher's last day as prime minister in which the main character sneaks into downing street and gets the keys into her private office on the day that she leaves to remove

a document which is. to secure the galloway hills because at that she died and to fight them at one point is a great place to store nuclear waste out of member be on the demonstrations but it did occur to me as i was reading the description of the. bridges laced with scottish history and as you say above politics but the landscape of scotland time travel that you know if it becomes a film or television series or cycle david tennant who buy. into such a rule of across cuba i think the book would make a great. t.v. or film using the amazing backdrop of scotland is a amazing backdrop indeed of all yvonne ridley the editor campaigning journalist captive of the taliban political activists and no science fiction author or for. a listing of politics and history of many success and didn't thank you so much for

being on the alex imus show and to say enjoy your with you titled the queer as you well know the over for loving cup thank you very much thought. that's wonderful i certainly treasure this. thank you place of the world thank you. what sort of markable interview then your death experience of being captured by the taliban could have impacted on hard bitten journalists upon ridley in a variety of ways few would have expected her life journey a convert to islam and an ancient into the vatican site of u.k. politics now a campaigner for scottish independence and a science fiction writer and volatile except to surprise us for some time to come next week we focused on northern ireland the storm and to simply has now been reconvened and has united to condemn boris johnson's bricks deal after shin fein stunning victories in the elections and the republic is either shitty night closer

than it any time since partition for neither from alex myself and all of the team we hope to see you next to my. today's. story.

is here. to be reached. for my army intelligence on the found whistleblower chelsea manning is in hospital often attempting suicide in jail she has been refusing to testify for and the u.s. government's wiki leaks probe. your struggles to find a common approach to talk to the corona virus outbreak which has now call starts a global pandemic by the world health organization. 19 could be. used as a pundit meat. to experimenting with explosives in britain can be legal after a supreme court ruling cleared him on terror related charges.