On September 8, Tibet’s religious leader will return to Slovakia to receive an award from the Ján Langoš Foundation in Bratislava. Another recipient of this foundation’s prize will be the social scientist Fedor Gál. After Slovakia, the Dalai Lama will continue his tour to Prague to take part in a conference about peace, democracy, and human rights in Asia. The Dalai Lama is personal friend of former Czech president Václav Havel and has visited the Czech Republic several times, the Sme daily wrote.
When he last visited Slovakia in October 2000, he held lectures and received a doctorate honoris causa from Comenius University in Bratislava, but many political leaders ignored his visit (for instance President Rudolf Schuster, PM Mikuláš Dzurinda and the Speaker of Parliament Jozef Migaš), Sme wrote.
This time it appears the situation will be repeated, the website of the Sme daily wrote. The paper said the Ján Langoš Foundation let politicians know about the visit, but so far there has been no official reaction, according to the foundation’s administrator Filip Vagač.
The Dalai Lama is a Nobel Prize laureate. Since 1959, he has lived in exile in the Indian region of Dharamsala together with the exiled Tibetan government. Sme
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
