Campaign to win official apology for Alan Turing

[Wolfman1982]

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...paign_to_win_official_apology_for_alan_turing

A CAMPAIGN has been launched to win a posthumous apology for computer pioneer Alan Turing over his conviction for homosexuality.

The brilliant mathematician, who spent his key years at Manchester University, is hailed as one of the founders of modern computing.

But a conviction for homosexuality effectively ended his career. Troubled Turing went on to commit suicide in 1954, aged just 41.

Now a group of admirers of the scientist - named as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century by Time Magazine - are lobbying the government to make a posthumous apology.

Codebreaker

The Cambridge graduate was one of Britain's best wartime codebreakers - part of the team at Bletchley Park which unravelled the secret of the Enigma code machines used by German U-boats. Turing was awarded an OBE in 1945 for his wartime services to the Foreign Office and moved to Manchester to help work on the pioneering Mark 1 computer.

He was prosecuted for gross indecency for having sex with a man in 1952, but escaped jail after being offered an alternative of taking an experimental hormone treatment to reduce sex drive.

However, the case effectively ended his career and Turing fell into despair. His body was found by a cleaner at his Wilmslow home in 1954 - next to him was a half-eaten apple laced with cyanide. It was not until 1967 that laws against gay men were lifted.

More than 500 people have now signed the petition on the 10 Downing Street website to call for an official apology 'recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended his life and career'.

Hounded

John Graham-Cumming, a leading British computer expert who launched the campaign, said: "I think that Alan Turing hasn't been recognised in Britain for his enormous contribution because he died in his forties and almost certainly because he was gay.

"It is atrocious that we don't recognise this man and the only way to do so is to apologise to him. This man was a national treasure and we hounded him to his death.

"One of the things for people in the computing world is that he was part of the war effort but we don't give him recognition in the same way as other heroes. To me, he was a hero in the second world war."

Since his death, plaques, buildings and statues have been raised in Turing's honour. The computing world's equivalent of the Nobel Prize has been called the Turing Award since 1966.

So it looks like Denmark, was not the only country who tried to "cure" homosexuality by cutting and chopping in the male parts.

 

[Etoile]

Wow, I know about his computer work, but I didn't know he committed suicide following a homosexuality conviction.

 

[Wolfman1982]

Wow, I know about his computer work, but I didn't know he committed suicide following a homosexuality conviction.

Neither did I, but what it doesn't say is that he got castrated. that is the "alternative hormonal treatment".

 

[Safe_Bet]

(c) Copyright Charles Petzold
www.charlespetzold.com

By the time of Turing's conviction, alternatives to imprisonment were offered in the form of hormone treatments called "organotherepy" but more commonly known as "chemical castration."

Experiments with treating gay men with hormones had begun in the 1940s. At first it was believed that homosexuality was caused by insufficient "maleness," so the treatment involved testosterone. As we know now, increased levels of testosterone are associated with aggressiveness (sexual and otherwise), so it's not surprising to learn that the experimental testosterone treatments did not have the anticipated effect!

By Turing's time, they had switched to estrogen treatments. The implant they gave Turing for a year rendered him impotent and caused his breats to grow.

As horrendous as it was, It should be pointed out that it was chemical castration that rendered him impotent, not physical. They didn't hold him down and lop off his genitals.

I think that it's more important to recognize and correct the travesty of his persecution, based upon his sexual orientation, than is emphasizing the "drama".

 

[Wolfman1982]

Safe_Bet: whether it is chemical or physical, it is still insane and a travesty.

 

[Wolfman1982]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8226509.stm

Thousands call for Turing apology

Thousands of people have signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to World War II code breaker Alan Turing
Writer Ian McEwan has just backed the campaign, which already has the support of scientist Richard Dawkins.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under the gross indecency act after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The petition was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

He is seeking an apology for the way the young mathematician was treated after his conviction. He has also written to the Queen to ask for a posthumous knighthood to be awarded to the British mathematician.

Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

"This added insult and humiliation ultimately drove him to suicide," said gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who also backs the campaign. "With Turing's death, Britain and the world lost one of its finest intellectual minds. A government apology and posthumous pardon are long overdue."

National legacy

Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines.

However he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing.

In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called "On Computable Numbers", whilst in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.

After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.

"I kept reading about potential funding cuts at Bletchley Park and I suddenly felt really mad about it," said Mr Graham-Cumming.

"I felt Turing was getting overlooked as being a British genius and that there was a blindspot in the public eye about an important man."

He has so far collected more than 5,500 signatures.

He admits that an official apology to Alan Turing is "unlikely", as Mr Turing has no known surviving family, but he says that the real aim of the petition is symbolic.

"The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realise his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of prejudice was on him," he said.

 

[Wolfman1982]

UK apologizes for treatment of Alan Turing

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20571

Treatment of Alan Turing was “appalling” - PM | Number10.gov.uk

Thursday 10 September 2009
Treatment of Alan Turing was “appalling” - PM

The Prime Minister has released a statement on the Second World War code-breaker, Alan Turing, recognising the “appalling” way he was treated for being gay.

Alan Turing, a mathematician most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes, was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ in 1952 and sentenced to chemical castration.

Gordon Brown’s statement came in response to a petition posted on the Number 10 website which has received thousands of signatures in recent months.

Read the statement

2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

THAT WAS ABOUT BLOODY FUCKING TIME ! ! !

And I think Gordon Brown that tosser is only trying to get something out of it, just like when Blair said "sorry" to the two INNOCENT Irish men who got convicted on an IRA carbomb, and the father he died in jail, So what a load of wank and bollocks. Sorry for cursing, but I know of political apologies . They are not worth the paper they have been written on.

 

[none2_none2]

Safe_Bet: whether it is chemical or physical, it is still insane and a travesty.

That they did things like that don't really shock me given how backwards things somethings were back then. Remember that WWII only ended 7 years earlier. If I recall correctly, homosexuals in the camps were kept in jails because they were considered in need of incarceration. I also knew a gay guy who was given aversion therapy -- where they put electrodes on your testicles and sap you every time they expose you to a picture of a naked male. I think that happened to him in the late 60's or early 70's.

What DOES shock me is that here it is 57 years later, and it took them THIS long to apologize for what they did to a war hero who happened to be gay

 

[Wolfman1982]

What DOES shock me is that here it is 57 years later, and it took them THIS long to apologize for what they did to a war hero who happened to be gay

Yeah, and I completely agree, without superlatives. Even though I could use them.