Edinburgh University will decide within the next few weeks whether to strip controversial Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe of his honorary degree because of his poor human rights record.
At a meeting of the University of Edinburgh Court yesterday, members were updated on the steps being taken by the university senate to examine the honorary degree given to Mugabe in 1982.
Honorary degrees are awarded by the senate, the university's supreme academic body, on the recommendation of the honorary degrees committee for either outstanding academic achievement or in recognition of outstanding service or contribution to society or to the university.
After taking legal advice, the senate has established that under the Universities (Scotland) Acts it does have the power to withdraw honorary degrees. It has also agreed that it should be willing to consider doing so in cases where substantial new information comes to hand, which, for good reason, was not available at that time.
Calls to strip Mugabe of his degree are growing following the recent beatings of opposition politicians in Zimbabwe and after farms were taken away from families who had lived on them for generations. Such moves are all part of Mugabe's attempts to tighten his control in a country where inflation is spiralling out of control and there are food shortages.
An Edinburgh University spokesman said: "The University Court was informed that a small group of senior academic staff has now been set up to examine this issue further in relation to Robert Mugabe's honorary degree.
"This group will look specifically at the issue of whether there are or are not grounds for the withdrawal of the honorary degree and advise the honorary degrees committee - and through that body the senate itself - accordingly."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article