Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello, this is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rob Walker.

Today we're going back to 2011.

Protests have spread across the tiny island state of Bahrain

and they're beginning to shake the government to its very core.

What they're calling for is a free and fair government

and they also want equal rights for the sheer Muslim majority.

It's February 2011.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Bahrain's capital, Manama, have converged on the Pearl Roundabout near the city centre.

A few days earlier, the first peaceful demonstrations here were forcibly cleared by the security

forces, leaving several dead and hundreds wounded. But now the government has allowed them back and they're determined to stay.

This is our country and we are living here and we will die here also.

Whatever, we are not afraid and not care. The protesters have been

inspired by pro-democracy protests in other parts of the Arab world, the so-called

Arab Spring. They're mainly Shia Muslims, the religious majority in Bahrain, and they're frustrated

by what they say is years of discrimination by the Sunni monarchy that rules them.

They want more equal access to jobs and housing, and they want a real say in how they're

...