Family Of Late Alan Turing Demand Pardons For Homosxuality
Family of late Alan Turing demand pardons for 49,000 men persecuted for homosexuality.
(Photo: The Guardian)
Family members of the late British pioneering computer scientist, Alan Turing, delivered a petition containing more than 524,000 signatures to Downing Street this morning, requesting a pardon for more than 49,000 British gay men convicted under historic anti-gay laws in the UK.
Turing was highly influential in the development of computer science and worked for the Government Code and Cypher School, Britain’s codebreaking centre, during the Second World War. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, enabling the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements.
Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when such behaviour was criminalized in the UK. He chose oestrogen injections (chemical castration) over going to prison. Turing died in 1954 from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death a suicide, but it has since been noted that the known evidence is equally consistent with accidental poisoning.
Following an Internet campaign in 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British Government for “the appalling way he was treated”. A retrospective pardon was granted to Turing by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013. Now, campaigners want all the men convicted under the outdated law to be granted pardons.
“I consider it to be fair and just that everybody was convicted under the Gross Indecency Law is given a pardon. It is illogical that my great uncle has been the only one to be pardoned when so many were convicted of the same crime. I feel sure that Alan Turing would have also wanted justice for everybody,” said Rachel Barnes, Turing’s great niece.
The petition states: “Pardon all of the estimated 49,000 men who, like Alan Turing, were convicted of consenting same-sex relations under the British “gross indecency” law (only repealed in 2003), and also all the other men convicted under other UK anti-gay laws.
“Each of these 49,000 men deserves the justice and acknowledgement from the British government that this intolerant law brought not only unwarranted shame, but horrific physical and mental damage and lost years of wrongful imprisonment to these men.
“Alan Turing was pardoned in 2013, but the other estimated 49,000 men deserve the same.”
-bu Sarah Furlong
Read more: http://attitude.co.uk/alan-turings-family-and-attitude-editor-deliver-petition-to-downing-street/
