British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a posthumous
apology over the treatment of gay scientist and mathematician
Alan Turing, a man who helped the British Government unlock the
secret of the Enigma Code and therefore contributed to the WWII
Allied victory, calling the government’s treatment of the
scientist “awful” and “utterly unfair”. Rather than being
treated like a war hero, Turing was convicted for being a
homosexual and was given female hormone injections as a cure. He
committed suicide just two years after at the age of 41. As well
as his work during the war-effort, Turing is widely considered
to be the father of modern day computer science, no doubt giving
impetus to the international appeal for a formal apology. A
paragraph of Gordon Brown’s apology acknowledges Turing as a man
of great recognition, yes, but also goes some way to including
all those that, like him, were so horribly persecuted because of
their sexuality: Thousands of people have come together to
demand justice for Alan Turing