No Pardon For Turing

mikejuk writes "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. A statement in the House of Lords explained the reasoning: '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.'"

Comments

Re:It's not a choice

[snarkh]

Why only him? Many people were prosecuted along the same lines. I actually think it would be unfair to single him out in that respect.

Not exactly.

[Kupfernigk]

If Turing had belonged to the right regiment or club, it would all have been hushed up. The reason he was arrested and convicted was that, as a mathematician and electronic engineer, he was excluded from the inner circle of the British Establishment, whose view was that scientists and their like were not out of the top drawer.

Perhaps equally importantly, the background was one of gay-bashing in the US Establishment, who regarded homosexuals as a security risk (because, in typical backwards thinking, the Russians might blackmail them...which could not happen if their behaviour was regarded as unexceptional.) The US was already very worried about UK agents with Russian links spying on them, and was demanding a purge of unreliable elements from the British security services. Turing was high enough profile to show that we were "doing something", but low enough status to be thrown to the wolves,

This is the real background: class solidarity and stinking hypocrisy. Not much has really changed in the upper echelons of British society; it still comes as a shock to them when the British public turns out to be years ahead in their attitudes. And the actual workers in the security services are still treated like shit - Peter Wright wrote his book, Spycatcher, because as a mere surveillance expert he didn't qualify for a pension, unlike the higher-ups with their Eton and Oxford backgrounds.

Re:Not exactly.

[micronicos]

Thank you Kupfernigk, spot right on!

Sadly we now have a government composed of these aristo thugs. Americans can understand the class system intellectually but you have to have grown up in it to really appreciate its demonic force & antiquity. The 'old boy network' (and it is boys not girls) is alive & well and still runs post-imperial Britain with the same self-centred blinkers & mealy-mouthed hypocracies.

The sad thing about the Turing criminal case is that it was he who volunteered the information that he had a gay relationship to the police; this was in the course of reporting a burglary at his home; he was such an innocent, lovely man.

Re:It's not a choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you could say the trial failed to consider the human rights issues and thus the verdict was based on lack of consideration of the validity of the law.
You cannot convict someone based on a law that is not valid, whether that is because it did not exist, was not signed into law or it was not within the powers of parliament to enact such a law.
Declaring the last of these would send a far, far more powerful signal than anything else, since it means that it gives the judiciary a clear mandate to act against laws that are not acceptable.
Upkeeping it on the other hand means that it is just fine to enact whatever cruel law comes a long just as long as it is formally valid.