Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship the country the status of "international basket case". While the problems of Iran were no longer front-page news, it said, they still existed. In the circumstances, the editorial concluded, "A scholarship at The Queen’s College in memory of Neda Soltan is, indeed, politically motivated, and admirably so". UK diplomatic sources, speaking anonymously to "The Times", said that if the government had been asked, it would have advised against the creation of the scholarship, because Iran would see it as an act of provocation, and because it would interfere with efforts to free Iranians working for the British Embassy in Tehran
Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship the decision to establish the scholarship was one for Queen's, not for the university, since the colleges are self-governing bodies. Arash Hejazi, an Iranian writer who was present at Soltan's death, praised the college for the scholarship. An unnamed Iranian academic said to "The Times" that the letter from the Iranian embassy showed that the death had damaged the Iranian government. A British-Iranian student, Leyla Ferani, writing in "The Daily Telegraph", said that the establishment of the scholarship was "more than commendable", and "could prove to be a galvanising tool for the protestors". She said that "Oxford's move is as