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Comment by jacorreia | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure may of you are aware of Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde's prosecution for gross indecency (and if you're not you most definitely should!), but you should all also learn about the similar prosecution against Roger Casement. He was the father of human-rights investigations and made a huge impact with his investigations of human-rights abuses in Peru and the Congo. Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel prize-winner for Literature) wrote a book detailing his life called The Dream of the Celts. Highly recommended.

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Casement's so-called 'Black diaries' were used during his prosecution for treason in an attempt to discredit him as much as possible.

These were condemned at the time by irish nationalists as forgeries.

I believe that they are now generally regarded as genuine.

They included references to homosexual acts which was sufficient to incur public condemnation back then.

Consequently the fact that many of Casement's and also Wilde's sexual acts involved juveniles has never been given much consideration.

They are rather different cases.

Casement was tried and convicted of treason for trying, during World War I, to get Germany to support an uprising in Ireland against Great Britain. It's true that his alleged homosexuality didn't help his case.

Oh of course, there's little doubt he committed treason, but the fact that his homosexuality was used to ensure that a fair trial was impossible is what I was trying to get at.

Are there any other similar cases to Turing/Wilde/Casement that I don't know about?

The treason part of it was pretty cut and tried. The blackening of his character was necessary for political reasons, not to ensure a guilty verdict.

Tens of thousands of people were convicted under the same law. But they weren't famous. Only little people.

Considering Ireland (except Northern Ireland) is now widely accepted to be independent of Britain, doesn't that mean any "treason" supporting that should also seen as acceptable, and Casement should be pardoned from his treason conviction? To maintain it, implies that Ireland really shouldn't be independent, and that anyone still supporting it is also guilty.

It's only treason until you live long enough to see your side win.

It sounds silly, but that's how it really is. Treason is often a crime with the harshest punishments, yet also one that's most unclear if it's very bad or very good. Somehow it doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves as immoral law.

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