Stephen Fry Joins Turing Apology Campaign

British actor-director Stephen Fry has joined the thousands seeking an apology to World War II code-breaker Alan Turing, who was chemically castrated for being gay and subsequently killed himself at age 41.

Fry reached out to his some 700,000 followers on Twitter and urged them to back a campaign demanding an apology from Britain's prime minister.

Reads the petition: "Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code, and told us how to tell whether a machine could think. He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a 'cure,' and took his own life, aged 41.

"The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man's life and career."