US Ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat says, a democracy can only achieve its full potential with ample and safe space for free expression, opposition voices, and political dialogue.

US president Abraham Lincoln once elaborated on the dangers facing the Americans. He said some trans-Atlantic military wasn't going to crush them with a blow. Nor all the armies of Europe and Asia “could by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years.” He then said if destruction was the lot of the Americans, it must be them who will be its author and finisher. As a nation, he concluded, the Americans will either live as free men forever or die by suicide.

Democracy has never functioned very well in Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked the armed forces to always remain alert like other forces of the country to protect the sacred constitution and maintain the continuation of democracy braving any threat.

PRESIDENT Thein Sein, who is a former military leader himself, declared a three-month state of emergency in the Kokang self-administered zone in the northern part of Shan state, which shares border with China's Yunnan province.

A few days ago, in a news interview in Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) radio here in the US, a journalist covering events in Afghanistan provided a grim view of the prospects of democracy in that country.