Portal:University of Oxford/Selected article/14

The Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship is a scholarship for post-graduate philosophy students at The Queen's College (pictured), with preference given to students of Iranian citizenship or heritage. It was established in 2009 following the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian philosophy student, in the street protests that followed the disputed Iranian presidential election. The college received offers from two anonymous donors to establish a scholarship, followed by many individual donations from members of the public and former students of Queen's. The Iranian embassy in London told the college that the university was involved in a "politically motivated campaign... in sharp contract with its academic objectives". In response, The Times praised the scholarship, saying that the establishment of the scholarship was indeed politically motivated, "and admirably so", given the regime's reaction to her death and continuing problems in Iran. The college has denied that it took a political decision in establishing the scholarship, arguing that refusing the donations would itself have been a political act. Anonymous British diplomatic sources were reported as saying that the scholarship put "another nail into the coffin" of relations between Britain and Iran.