"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence," the BBC reported Justice Minister Lord McNally as saying when the motion was dismissed in the House of Lords last week.
Regarded by many as the father of computing, the English mathematician and computer scientist (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was best known for his role in formalising the basics of computer science before he was arrested and eventually convicted for “gross indecency” in 1952.
That year, while reporting a break-in attempt on his house to police, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with another man and was charged with gross indecency as homosexual acts were illegal at the time in Britain. He underwent a hormone injection programme (chemical castration) as an alternative to a prison sentence. He was also stripped of his security clearance and was unable to work on secret government projects.
Before his arrest, he was a key member of the team that cracked Germany’s Enigma code during the Second World War and later helped formalise the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” which were vital to the development of computer science.
He soon spiralled into depression and ultimately took his own life two years later, in 1954.
The latest online petition is different from the successful petition two years ago that called on the British Government to apologise for its persecution of Alan Turing. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown formally apologised in September 2009, describing Turing's treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair" as well as praising Turing's outstanding contribution to the war effort.
According to the Hansard transcript available online, Lord McNally stated that the government considered a posthumous pardon in 2009, adding: "A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted."
He continued: "It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd – particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times."
As this year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, a series of events are being held around the world to commemorate his contributions. Visit the 2012 The Alan Turing Year website for details.
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To use another analogy - I was fined for speeding once when I was caught driving 35mph in a 30 zone. that same zone was redesignated as a 40 zone 12 months later. Should I be given a pardon for my past transgressions? Perhaps you all think I'm oversimplifying the issue, but as I see it the law must not break down in the way people are proposing. I was charged with something that now used to be an offence - but you don't just get pardon when the law changes - imagine the chaos of the system that had to pardon everyone for their past as the laws were changing.
I am as big a Turing fan as anyone else. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. But, there is more at stake here. This petition is asking the law to submit to the emotional will of the public - this is unthinkable! The law adapts based on pure reason and reason alone. It must NEVER be tainted with emotion - because that IS how nearly every fascist regime ever started - an emotion changes a few key laws, and BOOM.
We have much bigger and more real problems to be dealing with in our current world. Think about the homosexual community in Uganda right now, persecuted and oppressed by their government, to name but one issue. Is the west truly so decadent and self-assured, that we must now probe into the past to try and somehow gain retribution for past mistakes? When will people learn that the problems of today merit our attention so much more?
I do feel that gays tend to just abstract it all away.
I just saw a bunch of young gay boys groping their way out of a huge dark love jungle with fresh stabs on their young hearts a few days ago when they tried to connect with other strange gay souls in an immature erotic party without knowledge of almost any skill of love.
It's all so dangerous and harmful but there's no coach around to help them escape from the unintended or intended hurts from the erotic games.
If even gay seniors cannot coach their young friends, what help would you expect the (ignorant, if not sinister) het world to offer them?
And sinister het laws need better treatment than abolition.
No one us perfect and i dk nof equate imperialism with naziism.. i merely suggest fhe rule of law is not perfect
This story (and its ensuing comments) epitomizes one of the gay community's conundrums: People get all in a huff over a non-story, a ceremonial and inconsequential "pardon" for a dead man some two years after the British PM apologized for the appalling treatment of the gay community (in the macro) and Turing (in the micro). Maybe a little less squawking and debate about or grandfather's legalities - and a little more focus on contemporary injustices is in order.
Reader's Digest Version...
Replace your bookmark for:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23526
With something that matters:
http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/content/globalissues/index.html
All of these foolish disputes and regimes could be verturned by logic and reason. Looking at morality and ethics dispassionately is what helps us to legislate in favour of gays, going the other way will only hurt us all.
Turing's case was sad, but that was the situation back then and Turing cannot be resurrected and retried by today's standards. We should remember him and make sure we don't repeat the mistake instead of living in a dream world where we can rewrite history. Can I wipe away the effects that 19th century colonialisation and exploitation still have on the people of Africa by a half-hearted "we are weeeeally sowwy for what we done"?
Emotions are almost always the culprit when an injustice has been done or when a hate-crime, whether personal or national, has been commited. Emotions in a legal system are not only dangerous, they are the MOST DANGEROUS ememy of a fair system, and mass-emotion on a national scale lead us to fascism, cultish behaviour, sheep-mentality, nationalism, chaos, racism and homophobia. Emotions and personal beliefs actually resulted in the stupid homophobic laws in the first place.
Lastly, just because Britain is doing *relatively* well compared to both the past and to many (but not all) other countries it doesn't mean that Britain is perfect. Nobody has said "nothing's wrong here", you are falling victim to the classical logical fallacy known as "false dichotomy" also known as "black and white thinking". Just because someone says that something about Britain is good, it doesn't mean that nothing is wrong...
In any case, the way to improve Britain isn't by issuing a useless pardon to a person who died under a different regime, (the government has repealed that law so it's done its job there) it is by honouring his memory by standing for petitions and legislation that actually will change the lives of millions of people who are alive now and can benefit from more acceptance.
(...whoops, fell afoul of Godwin's Law. Damn.)
perhaps global pressures on the UK goverment will be more effective in granting him a posthumous pardon.
Kirk
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Turing was not executed, and he has not been found innocent of what was considered a crime at the time. As bigotted as that law was, pardoning every person who broke a law that was then overturned would be impractical. The Prime Minister has issued a statement of regret concerning the treatment of Turing and that is as far as the law can go. We cannot turn back time. We can only look to the present and the future
@26, I researched this, and the UK has already through the Protection of Freedom Act deleted from criminal databases convictions for consensual gay sex, in other words convictions when gay sex was illegal, or the age of consent was different, are deleted and the record expunged. Similar in effect to a pardon. Presumably you have to still be alive though.
As for Penstate72... go back and read Henry David Thoreau... civil disobedience ... this is the knee-jerk, sissy reaction, "Oh my my, it must be anarchy." Hell, no. Perhaps the conservatives in this discussion had better go rediscover what democracy is... it's a conversation, not a set in stone thing... and the conversation happens today, not yesterday... I find Turing "Had never been guilty." Anyone care to establish that law with me and shout it out?
Besides, I believe only Turing is in the legal position to appeal, if he's still alive. Also, it's only a mere formality, which I felt that an official apology is already appropriate. Finally, constructive reforms have been taken to avoid passing the same kind of judgement in future.
If people had to live in the past, I think we would still be warring now, perhaps killing a half a million of Germans and Japaneses, over the crime of a few ambitious mad men leading these countries decades ago.
As for whoever it was that made the statement that I believe "What is law is right" - how ridiculous, haha. Where on earth did you get that from? Mind you - I predicted one or two overly-zealous people would go for my jugular on that one. I don't personally see how this issue relates to apartheid, or Nazi Germany. Think though, how was it those systems even came about? One man or one group's personal feelings/prejudices taking over the legal system and using it to their own end.
Pardoning Turing, who has been dead for tens of years, would have been symbolic but would have been a statement. Not pardoning him is another statement.
Stiff upper lip!
Laws are a system of oppression and the only solution is to crush all institutions of the so called "state" power -- in all countries (states if you will) od the world SIMULTANEOUSLY.
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