I can’t help using a pop­u­lar say­ing to start explain­ing how a feel about an arti­cle on BBC News regard­ing a call from Mem­ber of Par­la­ment Iain Stew­art to ‘par­don’ com­puter pio­neer Alan Tur­ing, so here it is: “L’enfer est plein de bonnes volon­tés et désirs”

Per­haps I am mis­in­ter­pret­ing the mean­ing of the word par­don here, so allow me to use some help from Merrian-Webster:

1: indul­gence
2: the excus­ing of an offense with­out exact­ing a penalty
3
a : a release from the legal penal­ties of an offense
b : an offi­cial war­rant of remis­sion of penalty
4: excuse or for­give­ness for a fault, offense, or discourtesy

I had also read an arti­cle not too long ago regard­ing an e-petition to grant Alan Tur­ing a for­mal par­don. This ini­tia­tives make me trem­ble with right­eous indig­na­tion. For­mer prime min­is­ter (Gor­don Brown) issued an offi­cial apol­ogy on behalf of the gov­ern­ment. So I don’t under­stand the need for a ‘Pardon’. That is one of the prob­lems with rep­re­sen­ta­tives and insti­tu­tions of ‘jus­tice’, they do not apol­o­gize, they grant ‘par­dons’, they were right all along, but they are so mag­nan­i­mous, they for­give our ‘sins’ but we bet­ter com­ply or else…

Tur­ing was arrested under the same law that was used to con­vict Oscar Wilde in 1895. He was con­victed of gross inde­cency fol­low­ing a rela­tion­ship with another man and under­went hor­monal treat­ment (chem­i­cal cas­tra­tion) as an alter­na­tive to prison. Here is an infor­ma­tive arti­cle with some more details about Tur­ing and the whole affair.

Ok,well, enough with the rant. The good news is that this year (23 June) marks the cen­te­nary of his birth and as the arti­cle states, it affords us a great oppor­tu­nity to put right what was done wrong to him. We are hear­ing suggestions.