British government apologizes for the treatment of Alan Turing

[Cephalopod]

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.


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

About time. A nice little apology from British PM Gordon Brown.

Quick edit to add:
Simon Singh's excellent "The Code Book (http://www.amazon.com/Code-Book-Science-Secrecy-Cryptography/dp/0385495323/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252689509&sr=8-1)" gives a lot of background on how important Turing really was to cryptography and computer science. Very recommended reading.

[Atlanteax]

I'm generally not much for the gay rights stuff, but I'll say that it was utterly absurd that a huge war hero (the value of being able to intercept and read German Enigma codes cannot be understated) would be punished in such a manner solely on the premise that he was gay.

[Landrion]

How depressing. I'd only known Turing's name previously from my comp sci courses on the Turing test. What a sad story.

[Drunken Durfin]

...chemical castration...

Even though it is just drug therapy, the visual image that phrase brings up is rather horrid.

"Please place your junk in this bowl of acid. Would you like a bite-stick?"

http://asset1.pnn.com/graphics/show/1879/600/image.jpg