Gordon Brown has said he was sorry for the "appalling¹" way World War II code breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.

戈登布朗称，他对二战期间密码破译专家Alan Turing被认为是同性恋这件“令人震惊”的事情感到遗憾。

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Alan Turing is said to be the founder of computer science

A petition（请愿，祈求） on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous³（死后出版的） government apology to the computer pioneer.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted⁴ for gross（总共的） indecency（无理，猥亵） after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

He was seeking an apology for the way the mathematician⁵（数学家） was treated after his conviction. He also wrote to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded a posthumous knighthood.

The campaign was backed by Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins and gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. The petition posted on the Downing Street website attracted thousands of signatures.

Mr Brown said: "While Mr Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly⁶ unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him."

National legacy⁷

He said Mr Turing deserved recognition for his contribution to humankind.

In the statement he said: "So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

Organisers of the petition welcomed the move and Mr Turing's three nieces said they were "delighted" and "very glad" to see the injustice⁸ recognised.

Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration（去势，削正） as a "treatment" and his security privileges（特权） were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping⁹ to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered（译成密码） with the German Enigma¹⁰ machines.

However, he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing¹¹.

In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical¹² basis for the rise of computers in a seminal¹³ paper（论文） called On Computable¹⁴ Numbers, while in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.

After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.