A video clip of the 14th Dalai Lama ‘Tenzin Gyatso‘, the supreme leader of Tibetan Buddhists, is going viral on the internet. In the viral video clip, Dalai Lama can be seen kissing a minor child, during an event.
After which Dalai Lama was accused of sexual exploitation, and a well-planned campaign was launched against him on the media and social media. In which the Global Buddhist Summit held in New Delhi was also targeted. In this report, DFRAC has tried to bring the truth of this whole conspiracy of China to the readers.
Source: Twitter
After the video clip went viral, the statement of the child about the incident has also gone viral. In which the child can be heard saying that meeting the Dalai Lama was a positive experience. Nothing wrong happened to him. The child’s family members have also denied any claims of wrongdoing by the Dalai Lama during the meeting with the child.
Source: Twitter
But sadly, no importance was given to this statement of the child. In fact, Western media outlets, including those in China, chose not to air or publish this information.
Source: Twitter
At the same time, the Dalai Lama also issued a statement apologizing for the incident, and said in the statement that recently a video had gone viral, in which a child could be seen requesting a hug from the Dalai Lama. In this case, the religious leader would like to apologize to the boy and his family as well as all his friends around the world for the harm caused by his statement.
The Dalai Lama often innocently teases those he meets in public, in front of the cameras. However, he regrets the incident.
Dalai Lama on China’s Target
Tibet considers itself an independent country. On which China asserts its supremacy. On 10 March 1959, the People’s Republic Army (PLA) of China forcefully took over this independent area. Thousands of Tibetans were killed during this. The Dalai Lama along with his one lakh followers left Tibet and took refuge in India. China considers the Dalai Lama as its enemy. At the same time, the people of Tibet are still fighting for freedom.
Conspiracy Against Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile in India for the last 64 years, is seen as a symbol of peace all over the world. He has also been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In such a situation, China is now trying to tarnish the image of the Dalai Lama to weaken the demand for an independent Tibet.
China and its Communist Party presented this video of Dalai Lama in wrong context in media and social media and ran many misleading news.
China’s Propaganda
To damage the Dalai Lama’s image, China used the hashtags #达赖舌吻男童二偔心 (Dalai’s tongue disgustingly kisses a boy) and #达赖 (#DalaiLama) in Chinese. Dalai Lama’s memes were posted in these hashtags. His fake and edited images were also posted. Some of those tweets are given below.
Trend initiation and the pattern
The first tweet on the hashtag was done on April 15 from a Chinese account. Sharing a screenshot of the viral video clip, it was written in Chinese that, “Ah! F*ck me, I’m blind, don’t be as cheap as me and click to See!The old bald head disgusts me to death! vomit vomit yue.”
Source: Twitter
The graph above shows a timeline of two hashtags (#达赖,#达赖舌吻童二行坝心) that were trending in China. These hashtags were started by the Chinese accounts on 11 April. It can be seen that this trend gradually increased over time.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that the hashtag #PedoLama was also trending on Twitter, with Chinese accounts leading the charge against the Dalai Lama.
Simultaneously, multiple tweets criticizing the Dalai Lama surfaced on the Chinese hashtag #达赖 (#Dalai) in the Chinese language
Role of Global Times in the Propaganda
Source: Twitter
China’s mouthpiece Global Times and its journalists also raised this issue a lot and made many objectionable posts against the Dalai Lama. In its opinion piece, written in response to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) report, the Global Times wrote that the Dalai is a shameless old scoundrel and sexual pervert. Can anyone give a solid argument in its defence? Can these videos be laundered? The only option for the Dalai Lama is to remain silent, to endure and overcome the criticism of the world. They have shamelessly come out and defended themselves, as if the Dalai Lama’s so-called “compassion” reflects more than not doing this dirty deed. They are brazen and crazy, but I’m sorry, the world is cool and won’t go crazy with them.
Source: Twitter
Source: Twitter
Source: Twitter
Global Times journalist ‘Hu Xijin’ made several fake tweets against the Dalai Lama. He also posted a misleading video of the Dalai Lama with Lady Gaga. In which Dalai Lama can be seen touching the legs of Lady Gaga.
Source: Twitter
He wrote in his tweet – ‘After watching the “Suck my tongue” video and this video of touching Lady Gaga’s legs, all that comes to mind is pedophiles and sexual perversion. I’d like to see which country’s leaders have the guts to have this old pervert as a guest of honor again.’
Source: Twitter
In another tweet, Hu Xijin wrote that the Dalai Lama’s supporters tried hard to downplay the “Suck My Tongue” video, claiming that he was “showing his affection, warmth and humor.” is that so? So the Dalai Lama is also showing “affection, warmth and humor” to Lady Gaga?
We saw the entire conference of Lady Gaga with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama touched Lady Gaga in a friendly way. Which was presented in the wrong context. Actually Dalai Lama was teasing him for wearing torn jeans. After this she laughed and held the hand of the Dalai Lama. Not only this, even after touching of Dalai Lama, Lady Gaga remained in the conference with him for about 50 minutes. This video is from the 84th Annual US Conference of Mayors in Indianapolis.
Source: Twitter
Apart from this, in another tweet, he posted an edited picture of Dalai Lama and US President Joe Biden. In which Elon Musk was shown posting an emoji of fire, as a comment to that post. But when we checked Elon Musk’s Twitter account through advanced search, we could not find any such tweet or reply by Elon Musk.
Source: Twitter
‘Hu Xijin’ also shared obscene memes to target the Dalai Lama in order to tarnish his image.
Involvement of Chinese microblogging website “Weibo”
At the same time, this controversy was also fueled on the Chinese microblogging website Weibo. The Dalai Lama controversy remained the top trend in China. #达丽答吻幸何少呀 hashtag was top trending on Weibo.
Targeting Global Buddhist Summit
The Global Buddhist Summit was organized in the capital, New Delhi by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, in collaboration with the International Buddhist Confederation. Delegates from 30 different countries, where 180 delegates from foreign countries and 150 delegates from Indian Buddhist organizations participated in the conference. The Dalai Lama had also arrived to address the conference.
#DalaiLamaGoOut was trending on Twitter to prevent him from attending the conference. Thus, looking at the timing of the trend, it appears that the trend was aimed at influencing both the Global Buddhist Summit and the Dalai Lama.
Role of Indian Account
In the #DalaiLamaGoOut trend, we found many Indian verified users who amplified the trend which was started on 11th April by @i_snehasaini account. There were about 200 tweets on this hashtag. These tweets engaged nearly one million users on Twitter. The tweet pattern of @i_snehasaini is also similar to the pattern of other amplifiers of the hashtag.
Similar posts were tweeted on 18 and 19 April to block the Dalai Lama’s appearance at the Global Buddhist Summit. And on April 20, these accounts tweeted in the favor of the Global Buddhist Summit. Looking at these tweets, it appears that these tweets have been done under a specific agenda or by a PR agency.
Apart from this, we also came to know that some Twitter accounts posted irrelevant content to amplify the hashtag of #DalaiLamaGoOut, so that this hashtag can be promoted.
The Role of Alleged Nationalists in the Amplification of Trends
The so-called nationalists in India have also left no stone unturned to open a front against the Dalai Lama under #DalaiLamaGoOut. An activist named Saurav Srivastav tweeted that, “The Dalai Lama is a pedophile who should not be allowed to hold any public gatherings in a civilized society of India. He should be banned from attending the Global Buddhist Summit. #DalaiLamaGoOut #GBS2023”
Source: Twitter
Source: Twitter
On the other hand, an account named Sweety_IND tweeted that, “A pedophile in civilized gatherings is a curse for the society. After his disgusting pedophilic acts, the Dalai Lama should not be allowed to attend the Global Buddhist Summit. #DalaiLamaGoOut #GBS2023”
Source: Twitter
Himanshu Kumar wrote that, “A pedophile should not be entertained by the civilized society of India. After shameful pedophilic acts with a child, the Dalai Lama is not entitled to attend the Global Buddhist Summit in New Delhi. #DalaiLamaGoOut #GBS2023”
Source: Twitter
Human rights activist Umesh Agrawal wrote that, “Nurturing Dalai Lama the pedophile is not a good sign of cultural development. After making the child his prey Dalai Lama is not entitled to attend the Global Buddhist Summit in Delhi. #DalaiLamaGoOut #GBS2023”
Petition Against Dalai Lama
We also found several posts on Facebook with the keywords “Dalai Lama pedophile”. On investigation, we found a page named “Mom’s & Dad’s Against Childhood & Women Exploitation” running on Facebook. On this page we found a post by Tina Grider Hunt starting a signature campaign through an online petition called “Save kids from the Dalai Lama – Let’s stop child abuse”.
Source: Facebook
Source: Change.org
The petition is on the change.org platform. At the time of writing this report by Tina Hunt, a total of 1,331 signatures have been signed.
Google Search Timeline
The above graph shows the Google search timeline on the keyword “Dalai Lama” for the last 7 days i.e. 13th April to 20th April.
Google Location
It can be seen that since last week, the keyword “Dalai Lama” was top trending in China followed by Portugal.
Worldcloud
The wordcloud shows the most used words in tweets with the hashtag #PedoLama and other words include pedophilia, abuse, tongue, sexual, etc.
Conclusion:
The Dalai Lama has always been on the target of the Communist Party of China (CPC). As India provided shelter to Dalai Lama, China has been considering India as its enemy too. May it be the meetings with the international leaders or the abroad visits. China has always been criticizing India.
This time, it seems that China has fabricated the entire controversy to tarnish the image of the Dalai Lama and to undermine the Global Buddhist Summit being held in India. Chinese accounts tried to term the Dalai Lama a “pedophilic” through a video clip of a few seconds. While the child and his family completely denied this in an interview. After that a clip of the Dalai Lama touching Lady Gaga went viral. But after watching the whole video it proves that Dalai Lama was playing with Lady Gaga on which she looks happy and comfortable.
In this controversy, an attempt was made to target the image of the Dalai Lama and the Global Buddhist Summit being organized by India, by the Communist Party of China (CPC) by creating fake tweets to show Elon Musk against the Dalai Lama. Overall, this entire controversy was created by the CPC with the assistance of Chinese media outlets such as Global Times and Chinese space accounts.
