Peers call for a pardon for Alan Turing [video] | Hacker News Reader

Peers call for a pardon for Alan Turing [video]

bbc.co.uk

112 pointsra33 comments

Why not pardon all the other men who were persecuted? Their criminal records should be cleared.

Indeed - the current proposal suggests that the persecution was only wrong because he was a war hero, and not because of the injustice of it.

I'd imagine there must be some victims who are still alive today.

According to the video 16.000 of them are still alive and it seems they apparently already have been granted some form of pardon.

They say that they couldn't because it would also have included men who had non-consensual sex or sex with minors.

Turing's is largely a symbolic pardon to at least help address this concern to some degree. It's not perfect, but I'll take any steps forward I can get.

P.S. The video in the article is a pretty good / interesting review of all the events surrounding Turing and it's relation to this bill.

In Britain a pardon doesn't clear your criminal record, it makes you immune from prosecution. This makes a posthumous pardon largely pointless.

However, IIRC there was a lengthy bill passed several years ago that had one item which was to 'symbolically pardon' conscientious objectors during WWII. I imagine this is using that precedent.

Are these symbolic apologies, pardons any good practically? They keep coming up especially in the colonial setting where governments apologize for what happened a few decades ago. It feels like a zero cost (apart from parliament costs i.e.) way to absolve their own personal guilt.

In the real world, does it actually help the oppressed?

(Who wants to place bets on an official apology to the families of Snowden/Manning coming up in a few decades after they have been caught and "justice delivered" to them.)

I think they represent a government that is willing to look at its past and say "we were wrong". Too often we've seen "Mistakes were made", which is a way of skirting responsibility. At least this shows a society willing to acknowledge its faults and publically address them.

Does it really? It seems like more of a "I apologized, now hurry up and accept it" kind of gig. A true apology is one where people learn from it.

Gay marriage has this week been legalised in the UK. I'm really not sure what else they can do.

*in England & Wales. There is a bill that will be considered in Scotland once the parliament reconvenes. Northern Ireland has thus far rejected all legislation to change the law there.

What do you want them to do? Just ignore it? As much as we might want to we can't change history. Times change, social norms change and hopefully laws change with them (gay marriage is not legal in the UK, for example), but the best we can really do is say, "Yeah, we fucked up." and hopefully that creates a meaningful dialogue.

I think it is useless. It is about as meaningful as Bush standing in front of a banner that says "Mission accomplished".

Yes, you are right. No one can change history. That is not my point. My point is to emphasize that the gesture is meaningless; if people want to actually admit they fucked up, they should actually prove that they learnt from the mistake and do something about current problems. Otherwise, it is just a big hoopla about nothing.

So the huge strides made for gay rights in the UK (i.e. the legalization of gay marriage) is not doing something about current problems?

Previous discussion [1]. I didn't think HN allowed duplicate URLs within such a short timeframe (unless posted with a variation to the URL), but good to see it getting a proper airing, as it got modded off the front page in short order yesterday (possibly because the debate got a bit acrimonious).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6071596

People are really good at apologizing for the atrocities of the previous generation. This is a pretty empty gesture, and doesn't forgive the UK for driving to suicide a man who saved thousands of British lives.

While I do agree with what you've said, it is also worthwhile nothing that the UK today is obviously not the same people.

Yes, they discriminate against a different class of people. Immigrants. They are different yet they are the same. Learning from your mistakes means minimizing discrimination wherever it exists. Apologies are empty otherwise.

To emphasize my point further (which I briefly illustrated in another comment). This apology, I argue, is the same class of apologies as say an apology by the U.K. for atrocities committed in Kenya [1] during the uprising and then going forth into Iraq in the same decade.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising#Deaths_and_atr...

That earlier discrimination was done by other people is good reason not to blame these people for that earlier discrimination. It is no reason at all not to blame these people for present discrimination.

If the current people are not to be blamed, I would argue that itself renders the apology meaningless. It would be like you going on a murder spree and then me announcing that I apologize for a random stranger's murder spree.

If they are to be blamed and willingly accept some measure of blame in order to apologize, then their apology is again empty unless they actually have taken steps to rectify the situation around them. (Which in discriminatory elements is identical to the previous situation.)

Ultimately, I think it is theatre. An easy way for people who are not willing to solve problems around them: Yes, problems which also include discrimination against gays right now; yet want some way to assuage themselves of guilt. Well fuck that.

Recognition of what went wrong in the past is appropriate. Use it as an opportunity to point out what's still going wrong in the present; that's not the same thing as blaming the current generation for the errors of earlier ones, but neither is it blindly applauding while ignoring the things still needing fixing.

What angers me the forced chemical treatment of Alan Turings homosexuality indirect was a crime against humanity as he was a genius. We will never know what else he could have invented.

This would have been similar to giving other geniuses such as Einstein, Gauss, Tesla bad medicine which would have destroyed them.

Certainly an appropriate gesture, though "Pardon" could be taken the wrong way by some.

He already had an official apology from the prime minister in 2009. Many people want the conviction off the record, and it had to be done through a pardon because he cannot appeal or be tried again, and the law in effect at the time was not violated.

The petition to pardon is here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23526

A pardon in the UK won't clear a criminal record - it's a 'forgiveness of the crime'.

I noted in the video that the House is almost empty. Is everyone on a summer leave?

Not quite, there's a week or so to go, but it's not unusual for it to be that empty.

The bill is in second reading, which is the first opportunity to debate the subject. Those attending are therefore those with an interest in the bill and who want to speak in the debate (or are there for other business that day). There's no need for everyone to attend.

The Lords are a little different to their MP counterparts - firstly, there's a lot more of them (if all the eligible Lords actually turned up you'd have a very hard job fitting them in the chamber), and they also don't get paid a salary. Rather, they are paid an allowance for each day they actually attend.

Obligatory "Pardon implies he did something wrong post". they should apologize.

They have apologised:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/pm-apology-to-alan...

Indeed. Absolving him of any wrongdoing in the first place would have been appropriate, but pardon may be the only recourse to push through the House.

Ironic that we now have Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Elton John, two men who would have met the same fate in Turing's time.

The fact that we have "Sirs" Ian and Elton is proof that we have moved on. It is a different world since Turing's time. We also used to burn people alive for heresy. An official apology was gesture enough on this matter.

That's a really good point!

Actually, it's more like "pardon implies special exemption", and that's just wrong. Turing was special, but there was nothing special about his legal treatment or the circumstances leading up to it.

An apology has already been issued (as noted in a sibling comment). That apology, though addressed specifically to the case of Alan Turing, was general, and included "many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws...". That is a meaningful statement.

And there are classes of pardons and other actions that could "make it didn't happen", but that would absolve Britain (or, more properly in this case, England and Wales) of responsibility for historical wrongs (and they were hardly unique in that). It did happen, and it would be better to note that it did happen, but that things have changed in such a way in the interim that we, collectively, no longer believe that what happened is acceptable.

Apologize for the actions of people who are long gone?

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