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The Tibetan spiritual leader said in a statement that he “wishes to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as to his many friends around the world” after a video circulated in which he kissed the lips of a boy and asked him to help him. “suck the tongue”
The Dalai Lama, the 87-year-old spiritual leader of Tibet, apologized Monday after footage showed him asking a boy to “suck my tongue” at a public event.
“A video clip has circulated showing a recent meeting in which a boy asked His Holiness the Dalai Lama if he could give him a hug,” said a statement on the exile leader’s Twitter account, which has 19 million followers.
“His Holiness wishes to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as to his many friends around the world, for the harm his words may have caused.”
According to the statement, the leader of the Dalai Lama “usually jokes with people he knows in an innocent and playful way, including in public and on camera. He regrets the incident.”
The video, which has a million views on Twitter, also shows the Nobel Peace Prize winner apparently giving the boy a kiss on the lips in front of an audience that can be heard applauding and laughing, while a man captures the moment with one phone. Reuters has not verified the clip.
Beijing considers the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet, a dangerous separatist.
He has spent decades working to win global support for linguistic and cultural autonomy for his remote, mountainous homeland.
He now lives in a temple compound surrounded by green hills and snow-capped mountains in the northern Indian city of Dharamshala.
(With Reuters)
