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 studying philosophy of physics, who is of Iranian descent. She said that it was "a great honour" to be awarded the scholarship, adding that she hoped she could "do justice" to Agha-Soltan's name. She was succeeded by an unnamed male student, studying political philosophy and the history of political thought. The establishment of the scholarship drew a letter of protest to the college from the Iranian embassy in London. It was written in November 2009 and signed by the deputy ambassador, Safarali Eslamian. The letter disputed the circumstances of her death, and said that there was "supporting evidence indicating a