Taliban captive star of Islam day

Ridley told the audience she found her new Muslim dress "liberating"

Muslim convert and former Taliban prisoner Yvonne Ridley was the star speaker at Hampshire's first ever Muslim awareness day.

Ridley told an audience of 200 at the Medina Mosque in Southampton that she found the Muslim dress code empowering.

She said: "How liberating is it to be judged for your mind and not the size of your bust or length of your legs."

In 2001, the 46-year-old was arrested by the Taliban while reporting undercover for the Sunday Express.

Ridley told BBC News Online: "If I thought anything about this faith was unfair to women, I wouldn't have joined.

"Men have a dress code of modesty as well and have to grow a beard."

Today's event is to try to alleviate misconceptions about Muslims - we are not actually that bad Yasmeen Hussain

Rashid Islam, 24, said: "We want to give people a taste of what Islam really means, rather than the media image, which sometimes portrays it as fanatical when it is not."

Yasmeen Hussain, 32, said: "Today's event is to alleviate some of the misconceptions about Muslims, to say that we are not actually that bad and to come and approach us.

"A person who reads an article in the local paper has perhaps never met a Muslim person - the figures are very low."

The event was organised by the Southampton Muslim Council, an umbrella group of the city's mosques, and supported by the interfaith council.

Council member Rev Ian Johnson, of the central Southampton parish, said: "Both the Muslim and Christian social agenda are the same.

"All the seven faiths of Southampton are desperately concerned to make sure everyone understands we want to work together."