<nettime> Turing machinations [digest: barbrook, phydias]

[nettime's_read_write_head <nettime@kein.org>]

Re: Full Text of the QUEEN's Pardon of Alan Touring

     Richard Barbrook <richard@imaginaryfutures.net>
     Phydias <phidyas@yahoo.com>

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Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2013 15:05:21 +0000
Subject: Re: <nettime> Full Text of the QUEEN's Pardon of Alan Touring
From: Richard Barbrook <richard@imaginaryfutures.net>

Alan Turing: Was he murdered by the security services?
Call for full inquiry into the scientist???s death 
Pardon urged for 50,000+ men convicted of the same offence
 London - 24 December 2013

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has written to the Prime
Minister urging a new inquiry into the death of the scientist Alan
Turing, who has just been granted a royal pardon for his 1952
conviction for homosexual relations.
 
"The government should open a new inquiry into the death of
gay war-time code-breaker, mathematical genius and computer pioneer
Alan Turing, including an investigation into the possibility he was
murdered by the security services," said Peter Tatchell, Director of the 
human rights advocacy organisation, the Peter Tatchell
Foundation.

"The security services would have been very fearful that
Turing was vulnerable to blackmail and anxious that he might pass
information to the Soviets, as did the British nuclear scientist Klaus
Fuchs, who was convicted in 1950 of assisting the Soviet Union"s
atomic programme. There was an irrational, paranoid fear that other
leading scientists might also aid the Soviets.
 "Although there is no evidence that Turing was murdered by
state agents, the fact that this possibility has never been
investigated is a major failing. The original inquest into his death
was perfunctory and inadequate. Although it is said that he died from
eating an apple laced with cyanide, the allegedly fatal apple was
never tested for cyanide. A new inquiry is long overdue, even if only
to dispel any doubts about the true cause of his death.

"Turing was regarded as a high security risk because of his
homosexuality and his expert knowledge of code-breaking, advanced
mathematics and computer science. At the time of his death, Britain
was gripped by a MacCarthyite-style anti-homosexual witch-hunt. Gay
people were being hounded out of the armed forces and the civil and
foreign services.

"In this frenzied homophobic atmosphere, all gay men were
regarded as security risks - open to blackmail at a time when
homosexuality was illegal and punishable by life imprisonment. Doubts
were routinely cast on their loyalty and patriotism. Turing would have
fallen under suspicion.

Royal pardon due to all men convicted of the same consenting offence

"Singling out Turing for a royal pardon just because he was a
great scientist and very famous is wrong. At least 50,000 other men
were convicted under the same law. They have never been offered a
pardon and will never get one. Selective redress is a bad way to
remedy a historic injustice.
 
"An estimated 15,000 men convicted of the same offence as Alan
Turing are still alive.
 
"An apology and pardon is due to the other 50,000-plus men who
were also convicted of consenting, victimless homosexual relationships
during the twentieth century. These men were criminalised for
consenting behaviour that was not a crime between heterosexual men and
women.
 
"The precedent for a mass pardon is the granting of a pardon
in 2006 to over 300 soldiers who were executed for alleged cowardice
and desertion during World War One.
 
"Turing was convicted under the same "gross indecency"
law that sent Oscar Wilde to prison in 1895. It remained on the
statute book until 2003, classified in the penal code under the
heading "unnatural offences." Likewise, the law against
"buggery", which was legislated in 1533 during the reign
of King Henry VIII, was not repealed until 2003.
 
"The criminalisation of homosexuality only ended in 2003 in
England and Wales. It is only since then that we have had a penal code
that does not discriminate on the grounds of sexual
orientation," said Mr Tatchell.  
 
Further information: 
 Peter Tatchell
 Director, Peter Tatchell Foundation
 0207 403 1790
 Email: 
 Web: www.PeterTatchellFoundation.org 

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Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2013 09:38:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Phydias <phidyas@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Full Text of the QUEEN's Pardon of Alan Touring

First we kill, than we pardon. Oh modernity!
So elegant....


??
Henrique Antoun, Ph.D. ECO-UFRJ, Associated Professor
Senior Researcher, CIBERIDEA, PPGCOM, CNPQ
Senior McLuhan Fellow, University of Toronto
Avenida Pasteur, 250 (fundos), sala 106, IDEA
Urca, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, CEP: 22290-240
(5521) 38735072 (phone), (5521) 38735075 (fax)


Em Ter??a-feira, 24 de Dezembro de 2013 12:58, nettime's royal scribe <nettime@kein.org> escreveu:
 

     ELIZABETH THE SECOND, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and
Territories QUEEN, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, To
all to whom it these Presents shall come,
 <...>

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