Stephen Fry joins Alan Turing apology petition
September 7th, 2009
Stephen Fry has joined the campaign calling for the British government to posthumously apologise to Alan Turing, the World War II hero who was chemically castrated and prosecuted by the government because he was gay.
Alan Turing was instrumental in breaking the Nazi’s Enigma code, a pivotal moment in World War II. He was also a great computer scientist and is widely regarded as one of the key founders of modern computing and artificial intelligence.
Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after he admitted a sexual relationship with a man, and his punishment was chemical castration. Two years later, at the age of 41, he committed suicide.
Stephen Fry has joined almost 30,000 other people in signing the online petition, and he has also urged his 745,000 followers on Twitter to sign.
“Alan Turing saved the lives of millions of people,” commented Co-Chair of LGBT History Month, Tony Fenwick. “He is long overdue an apology for the homophobic conviction which led to his suicide.
“The petition ends in January, shortly before the start of LGBT History month. What a great opportunity to issue an apology and launch a national hero.”
Update 11 Sept 2009: Gordon Brown apologises for “horrifying” treatment of Alan Turing
It’s appalling that this hasn’t been done already.
Kaite ∼ September 8th, 2009 5:07 pmWhile I’m in favour of this, I think the government should apologise to everybody else, not just the famous homosexuals.
I went to Berlin recently, and they have a monument, and they also apologised officially. To my knowledge the UK government hasn’t killed anybody for homosexuality (on the record, at least), but there still needs to be an apology.
Tom Adams ∼ September 9th, 2009 1:31 pm