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Widespread Celebrations But No Pardon For Turing 
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Widespread Celebrations But No Pardon For Turing
Written by Historian
Monday, 06 February 2012 11:14
A petition signed by over 21,000 people asked the UK Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing. That request has now been declined.
In the UK and in many parts of the world a great deal is being made of the fact that this year, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing.

But also this month the House of Lords declined to grant a posthumous pardon for the crime of gross indecency for which he was convicted in 1952. Not only was he forced to undergo chemical castration, his security clearance was then withdrawn and he was unable to work for continue his work for GCHQ, Britain's intelligence agency.
Turing committed suicide two year's later
An previous petition, organised by computer security expert and author, John Graham-Cumming in 2009 led to the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown issuing an unequivocal posthumous apology to Mr Turing on behalf of the Government, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair".
Gordon Brown also said his statement that the country owed him a huge debt and this helped to fuel the surge of attention that Turing's life and work is currently receiving.
When Gordon Brown's apology was included in the Channel 4 documentary celebrating Turing's life and achievements broadcast in November 2011, a new petition was initiated asking for the UK government to consider granting a posthumous pardon to Alan Turing.
In the House of Lords on February 2nd Lord McNally stated that the government had already considered this in 2009 and continued:
"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.
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".
In his blog post today John Graham-Cunningham writes:
It's interesting, to me at least, that the issue of a pardon was considered in 2009 as this was not something I had been asking for. The government's response makes clear that they do not consider a pardon appropriate.
Back in November, Graham-Cunningham explained why he considered the new petition to be a mistake. The government statement largely echoes his sentiments.
As Turing Year continues it seems best to celebrate the achievements of a brilliant polymath, accept his sexual orientation and hope that we are now enlightened enough not to let what happened in the 1950s to recur today.



http://www.i-programmer.info/news/82-heritage/3735-widespread-celebrations-but-no-pardon-for-turing.html

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Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:55 pm
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"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.

Yes and he would have also known that he wasn't able to do anything about his sexuality even if he wanted to.

One of the lamest excuses I've heard. Seriously that man was a frickin genius and we still sh!t on his memory.

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Tue Feb 07, 2012 8:31 pm
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Posthumus pardons are for people convicted of grave crimes such as murder, armed robbery, treason or terrorism who die before they can prove in court that they did not commit them. In such cases it is terribly important to their surviving relatives to clear their names for what is still a crime of which they are wrongly accused.

Turing's life was ruined by this prosecution, but this judgment can't compensate him in any way for that. His legacy and reputation are unaffected either way. He wasn't a falsely accused sodomite, he was a gay man who lived in an unforgiving era, so a pardon does not obliterate anybody's shame. Worse, it highlights a regrettable tendency to focus on the celebrity victim of an injustice that affected a huge number of people one way or another.

The Lords' position is correct; history is there to learn from, apologising for it devalues that.

Turing was just one of countless people who suffered horribly because they differ from the norm in some way. Nobody disagrees that this was a terrible thing, but the record of that shameful deed should stand because the shame that once was his has shifted to his accusers and should not be revoked.


Tue Feb 07, 2012 8:55 pm
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Admired as he is, he's dead. I don't see how pardoning him 50 years after it was all over really proves anything. His indirect descendants know his achievements vastly outweigh his criminal conviction. Everyone knows that if he had lived today he would have been accepted. A pardon changes none of these facts. It's just pandering to a rather needy desire in some people to 'prove' to everyone that we're even more 'right' now because we were 'wrong' then.

Let the past be the past. You don't learn from it by trying to rewrite it, you learn from it by not making the same mistakes again.

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Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:51 pm
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I do understand why they are not giving the pardon, he was guilty as accused. The fact that the law was injust is, unfortunately neither here nor there. Dura lex, sed lex.

I also think, that they have a point. If we expunge our history, we learn nothing.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana.

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Wed Feb 08, 2012 7:11 am
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It's not so much the pardon it's the:

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He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted.


That is lame, implying that he could have controlled his actions and in doing so, if every gay person had found able to do that, no changes to the law would have ever been made.

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Wed Feb 08, 2012 7:45 am
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adidan wrote:
It's not so much the pardon it's the:

Quote:
He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted.


That is lame, implying that he could have controlled his actions and in doing so, if every gay person had found able to do that, no changes to the law would have ever been made.


That's actually quite a dangerous argument to make; rather implies that one should be able to give in to any sort of desire they might have...

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Wed Feb 08, 2012 8:42 am
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I have to agree. Regardless of the fact we now view the laws of the time as wrong, 'I couldn't help myself' has never been a valid defense in law and frankly never should be. Maybe a mitigating circumstance with respect to sentencing but never a grounds for acquittal.

Jon


Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:25 pm
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