Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry campaign to pardon gay men convicted with Imitation Game codebreaker Alan Turing

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Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry have joined the campaign to rewrite history for the 49,000 British men who were persecuted for being gay along with Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing. Turing was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to chemical castration in 1952, for the simple fact that he was gay. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1967, but which point Turing had already died of cyanide poisoning. In 2013, the Queen issued a pardon for his "crime", finally wiping clean his record. [...]

"Should Alan Turing have been pardoned just because he was a genius when somewhere between 50 to 70 thousand other men were imprisoned, chemically castrated, had their lives ruined or indeed committed suicide because of the laws under which Turing suffered?" Fry said.

source: Article 'Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry campaign to pardon gay men convicted with Imitation Game codebreaker Alan Turing' by Helen Nianias; www.independent.co.uk/news/people/benedict-cumberbatch-and-stephen-fry-campaign-to-pardon-gay-men-convicted-with-imitation-game-codebreaker-alan-turing-10005530.html; The Independent; 27 January 2015