Bangladesh - Part 3

The third day was also hectic but not as crazy as the first two days had been. Weather was still very nice with a scorching near 40 degrees Celsius and a humidity of about 90% but I prefer hot weather to cold (including air conditioning). By now I had also gotten a little more used to the absolute mayhem that is the Dhaka traffic situation. We were blessed to have a fantastic driver for the duration of our stay, otherwise moving around the city would have been next to impossible...


At the Kaler Kantho newspaper

The day started with an interesting tour of Bangladesh's second largest newspaper the Kaler Kantho and a lunch with its editor in chief Mr Abed Khan. There was a very interesting discussion on freedom of the press and the situation for journalists in Bangladesh. Once back at the hotel I gave yet another TV-interview on the conference and my view on the upcoming tribunal for war criminals.¨


Cecilia beeing interviewed by Desh.TV reporter Farzana Rupa back at the Sonargaon

The evening offered a wonderfully nice meeting with two distinguished gentlemen at a very distinguished establishment, namely the Dhaka Club, with roots going back all the way to 1911 when Bangladesh was a British colony. The meeting was with Mr Sayed Kamaluddin and his friend heading an NGO umbrella whose name unfortunately escapes me while writing this. I had the great pleasure to listen to their stories and recollection of the recent history of Bangladesh from the perspective of the independent journalist and the civil society representatives.








Cecilia recieving a memorial placket from editor Abed Khan




Our visit coincided with the ongoing fotball world cup, since Bangladesh did not qualify people (everyone it seemed) simply choose another team to support and showed it by having its teams flag, here at the desks in the main newsroom. Argentina and Brazil were the two favourite teams...






Cecilia and Iranian human rigths activist Parvin Ardalan