TIMES ONLINE: Iran’s regime denounced the University of Oxford yesterday because one of its colleges has established a scholarship honouring Neda Soltan, the Iranian student killed during street protests in Tehran over the alleged rigging of the presidential election.
In a letter sent from the Iranian Embassy, the regime claimed that Miss Soltan’s death in June was staged by its enemies. It accused the university of joining a “politically motivated” campaign that would “undermine your scientific credibility” and “make Oxford at odd [sic] with the rest of the world’s academic institutions”.
In response, the university emphasised that the decision to award the scholarship was entirely a matter for the college, Queen’s. Professor Paul Madden, Provost of Queen’s, said that the scholarship would help impoverished Iranians to study at Oxford.
Miss Soltan, a philosophy student, was 26 when she was shot in the chest during a demonstration over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election that engulfed Tehran on June 20. Video footage of blood pouring from her mouth as she lay dying sped around the world. Miss Soltan became an emblem of the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom, and her death a symbol of the regime’s brutality. >>> Martin Fletcher and Greg Hurst | Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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