Bill Law

Bill Law is a Sony award-winning journalist. He joined the BBC in 1995 and since 2002 has reported extensively from the Middle East. He has travelled to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia many times. In 2003 he was one of the first journalists to cover the beginnings of the insurgency that engulfed Iraq. His documentary The Gulf: Armed & Dangerous which aired in late 2010 anticipated the revolutions that became the Arab Spring. He then covered the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. He has also reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Before leaving the BBC in April 2014, Mr Law was the corporation’s Gulf analyst. He now works as a freelance journalist focusing on the Gulf

Nov 17, 2018 Bill Law

An extraordinary tale of courage from a woman in jail in the UAE

It is a shocking two minutes and fifty-five seconds of audio that was smuggled out of Abu Dhabi’s Al Wathba prison. In the audio, a young female prisoner –...

Published in: Article, Middle East, Opinion, UAE
Nov 6, 2018 Bill Law

Bin Salman is in a reckless race of his own making

Back in September, before the disappearance and murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, I came across a story...

Published in: Africa, Article, Asia & Americas, Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, International Organisations, Middle East, Opinion, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UN
Sep 27, 2018 Bill Law

The UAE and the Washington Post: Democracy dies in hypocrisy

If I was the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor I would be a trifle annoyed. I enjoy his “Today’s World View” column on a daily basis. He is a very...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, GCC, International Organisations, Middle East, Opinion, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UN, US, Yemen
Sep 21, 2018 Bill Law

Jared Kushner is wrong; collective punishment will not lead to peace

Last week, exactly 25 years after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accord, Jared Kushner commented on the punitive measures that his father-in-law, the President of the United States,...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, US
Aug 6, 2018 Bill Law

Bahrain’s economic crisis is an urgent sign that change must come

The warning signs are clear and unmistakable: the Kingdom of Bahrain is in serious financial difficulty and its economy is tumbling into crisis. The country’s bond ratings are listed...

Published in: Article, Bahrain, Middle East, Opinion
Jun 7, 2018 Bill Law

Nabeel Rajab: a true patriot of Bahrain

On 4 June this year the Bahrain High Criminal Court of Appeal upheld a five-year sentence handed out to the prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab for tweets he...

Published in: Article, Bahrain, Middle East, Opinion
May 24, 2018 Bill Law

Exploited and abandoned, the Palestinians are truly the betrayed

Writing in the New York Times less than a week after 61 Palestinians had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers, and nearly 3,000 were wounded, the political editor of...

Published in: Article, Asia & Americas, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, US
Apr 23, 2015

Netanyahu’s fantasy

In Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 3 March speech to the US Congress he likened what was happening in the Middle East to the hugely popular American fantasy television...

Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine
Nov 24, 2014

Bahrain: What now?

In the parliamentary vote that took place on 22 November, the government of the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain is claiming an unofficial turnout of nearly 52% while the...

Published in: Article, Bahrain, Middle East, Opinion
Nov 24, 2014

Qatar’s bitter cup

Efforts by the QatarI authorities to reassure the world that all is well with its 2022 World Cup undertaking received a further setback on Wednesday when Amnesty International released...

Published in: Blog, Blogs - Politics, FIFA, Middle East, Qatar