Oxford funds ‘Neda’ scholarship; Iran protests

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

Oxford University’s decision to establish a scholarship honoring Neda Agha-Soltan, the Iranian student killed during a Tehran street protest, is causing a diplomatic row between Great Britain and the Islamic Republic.

Queen’s College just announced that they are funding the Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship, which will pay full tuition for one student, with “preference given to those of Iranian nationality or extraction,” to study towards a master’s or doctorate in philosophy.

Before her death, Agha-Soltan was a philosophy student at Islamic Azad University in Tehran — however, her studies focused on Islamic philosophy rather than “Western” philosophy.

The Iranian embassy in Tehran sent Oxford an angry letter riddled with grammatical errors, written in English, in response to news of the scholarship. The letter alleges that the recent election protests in Iran were engineered by Britain:

“It seems that the University of Oxford has stepped up involvement in a politically motivated campaign which is not only in sharp contrast with its academic objectives, but also is linked with a chain of events in post-Iranian presidential elections blamed for [sic] British interference both at home and abroad,” the letter said.

“We believe that your college decision to abuse Neda’s case to establish a graduate scholarship will highly politicize your academic institution, undermining your scientific credibility — along with British press which made exceptionally a lot of hue and cry on Neda’s death — will make Oxford at odd [sic] with the rest of the world’s academic institution.

The Neda scholarship is being funded by an unnamed donor who is a “British citizen” and is “well known to the college,” according to Queen’s provost Paul Madden. He also says that the scholarship would help impoverished Iranians study at Oxford. However, the question of how many Iranians would want to study at Oxford with the caveat that they can only study philosophy… that’s open to interpetation.

The first recipient of the scholarship is Arianne Shahvisi, a first year student pursuing a master’s degree in the Philosophy of Physics. According to Shahvisi, “It is a great honour to be the first student to receive the scholarship in the memory of Neda Agha-Soltan, which is particularly meaningful to me, being a young woman of Iranian descent, also studying philosophy. In accepting the scholarship, I extend my sincere condolences to the Agha-Soltan family, and hope that in succeeding in my studies at Oxford, I can do justice to the name of their brave and gifted daughter.”

Agha-Soltan was a photogenic 27-year-old Iranian travel agent and musician who was killed on camera at a Tehran street protest following the 2009 elections. Footage of her death was quickly dissemniated via YouTube and Twitter to news agencies worldwide — the short video that resulted became one of the iconic memories of the protests.

Agha-Soltan is widely believed to have been shot to death by Basij paramilitaries. The Basij are young militia memberswho volunteer to serve the Islamic Republic in exchange for (reputed) advantages in job hunting and university admission.

According to Agence France Press, a group of female Basij members protested outside the British embassy in Tehran with anti-British posters. The Basijis also held placards calling the doctor who treated her on-site, Arash Hejaz, a “murderer.”

Editor’s note: The writer of this piece is currently completing a thesis on media coverage of Agha-Soltan’s death.