Parliamentary bill launched for Alan Turing pardon.

[dipsydoodle]

The campaign to win a pardon for the UK's computer genius Alan Turing has been stepped up by the introduction today of a Private Members Bill in the House of Lords.

The brief measure calls for action to be taken in the current centenary year of the birth of Turing, who was convicted of gross indecency with another man in 1952 when such sexual encounters were unlawful.

The one-page bill was laid before the Lords this morning, Wednesday 25 May, by Lord Sharkey, the Liberal Democrat peer who lobbied the government unsuccessfully in February for a pardon. The refusal prompted the leading American mathematician Denis Hejhal to call for "an appropriate hullabaloo" in the UK.

This has duly happened, with celebrations of Turing's life interspersed with increasing pressure for action beyond the public apology for the scientist's treatment by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2006. Lord Sharkey, who has enlisted all-party support in both houses of Parliament, says:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/jul/25/alan-turing-private-members-bill-lord-sharkey

[CBGLuthier]

1. While I admire Mr. Turing, shouldn't they pardon ALL the men they persecuted?

Instead of just the gifted ones?

[LeftishBrit]

4. I agree they should...

but in the case of Alan Turing it isn't just that he was gifted, but that he played a very key role in winning the war and helping to save this country, which then rewarded him by hounding him to his death.

[oldironside]

2. The pardon makes sense...

... but for the opposite reason that soldiers executed for desertion or cowardice in WW1 deserve a pardon. We now know that most of them were suffering from PTSD. Turing, on the other hand, wasn't mentally ill, he was just gay.

[dipsydoodle]

3. He was also autistic

which may have affected his social behaviour in terms of the way he reacted to events in his life.