Neda Soltan was 26 and a student of philosophy when she was killed by a bullet to the chest in June during a demonstration over Iran’s disputed election. Her killer, most likely, was a member of Iran’s Basij militia. This week The Queen’s College in Oxford established a graduate scholarship in philosophy in her memory. The Iranian Embassy has now complained, denouncing the move as “politically motivated”.
In other news, the Ayatollah has a beard. Of course this scholarship is politically motivated. What else could it be? The death of Neda Soltan, captured on harrowing video and broadcast around the world, was a brutal example of what can happen when a shaken regime seeks to crush legitimate dissent. The official Iranian response has done much to nudge Iran away from the relatively respectable status of “pariah” and towards that of “international basket case”.
Miss Soltan was denied a proper funeral. Since then, Iranian officials have blamed her death on MI6, the CIA, the Iranian opposition themselves (in order, they said, to garner sympathy) and, in a move that soars beyond the blackest satire, story-hungry journalists from the BBC. Meanwhile, ordinary Iranians have adopted her as a symbol of all that Iran could be.
The problems of Iran have not gone away, even if they no longer lead the news as they did this summer. The regime of President Ahmadinejad remains entrenched and protest suppressed. Only last week police and militiamen fought running battles with demonstrators on the streets of Tehran. A scholarship at The Queen’s College in memory of Neda Soltan is, indeed, politically motivated, and admirably so.