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Yvonne Ridley 'Driven Out Of Job By Sexist Muslim Bosses'

High-profile Muslim convert Yvonne Ridley was driven out of her presenter job on an Islamic TV station by "sexist" male bosses, a tribunal has heard.

The former Fleet Street and Al-Jazeera reporter claimed a campaign of bullying and smears from Islam Channel chiefs was more stressful than when she was kidnapped by murderous Taliban fanatics in Afghanistan.

Ms Ridley, a member of George Galloway's Respect party who styles herself 'Sister Yvonne' after very publicly converting to Islam, is suing the channel for sex and religious discrimination and constructive dismissal after her current affairs show was axed last year.

She told a London tribunal relations with channel boss Mohammed Ali - who she claimed thought gay people should be "thrown off tall buildings" - got so bad he deliberately set out to trash her reputation by claiming he had seen her kissing and shaking hands with men.

Here's some info about Yvonne Ridley, if you're not familiar with who she is:

Yvonne Ridley (born 1968, Stanley, County Durham, England) is a British journalist and Respect Party politician best known for her capture by the Taliban and subsequent conversion to Islam after release.

Ridley has married four times.[1] Her first husband was Daoud Zaaroura, a former Palestine Liberation Organization officer. Zaaroura was a PLO colonel when Ridley met him in Cyprus.

Yvonne Ridley came to prominence in September 2001 when she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan whilst working for the Sunday Express. When she was discovered without passport or visa, she was held by the authorities for 11 days. One of her captors asked her to convert; she refused, but gave her word she would read the Qur'an after her release. She was impressed the way she was dealt during her stay in Taliban captivity. She explained Taliban looked after her very well. She said, "I was horrible to my captors. I spat at them and was rude and refused to eat. It wasn't until I was freed that I became interested in Islam."[3]

In freedom, she kept this promise, partly to find out why the Taliban treated women as they do. Reading the Qur'an she says she found no justification of the Taliban's actions, describing the holy book of Islam as a "magna carta for women" [4].

2003 saw Yvonne Ridley employed by the Qatar-based media organization Al Jazeera, where, as a senior editor, she helped launch the English language version of their website. On November 12 of that year she was fired because Al Jazeera found her "overly-vocal and argumentative style" was incompatible with the station’s programme.[7]

She began presenting The Agenda With Yvonne Ridley, the Islam Channel's politics and current affairs show, in October 2005.[1] However, the show and Ridley were axed from the Saudi-funded channel after she refused to shake the hand of a Saudi prince at a post-Hajj feast[citation needed]. The channel blamed Ofcom for exerting pressure, which that organisation denies. According to several published reports, Saudi pressure was brought to bear upon the channel head over the hand-shaking incident.

Ridley now works for Press TV, the Iranian English language 24-hour news channel, hosting many talk shows among them The Agenda [2] being the major one. She also writes a column for the New York-based Daily Muslims [3] and other publications.

Her vocal support for causes involving Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya and Uzbekistan have made her a popular speaker in anti-war circles. At a debate at Imperial College London on 16 February 2006 she outlined a viewpoint that is "pretty much in line with that of Hamas." She described Israel as "that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East" and further that her party, the Respect Party, "is a Zionist-free party...if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists," while both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were "riddled with Zionists."

At the "Muslimer i Dialog" conference in Copenhagen in September 2005, Ridley was asked if she didn't see it as a problem that militant Islamists distribute recruiting videos of Iraqi insurgents killing hostages. She replied that it was necessary for Muslims to have these videos at home as an alternative form of news to what she perceived as the propaganda of Western media. At the same meeting she compared British Prime Minister Tony Blair with Pol Pot.