Dawkins calls for official apology for Turing

19.08.09, Jonathan Brown, for INDEPENDENT (UK). Richard Dawkins last night joined the campaign to win an official apology for Alan Turing, the code-breaking genius and father of the modern computer who committed suicide in 1954 after being prosecuted for being homosexual. More than 2,500 people have now added their name to the on-line petition calling for the Government to recognise the "consequences of prejudice" that ended the life of the scientist aged just 41. Professor Dawkins said that an apology would "send a signal to the world which needs to be sent", and that Turing would still be alive today if it were not for the repressive, religion-influenced laws which drove him to despair.