Sorry just isn’t enough.. show us the money
CALL TO COMPENSATE GAY MEN JAILED FOR LOVE Campaign urges redress
Scottish ministers have been urged to offer compensation to hundreds of men criminalised under historic anti-gay laws.
Nicola Sturgeon will offer an apology next week to men convicted of now abolished same-sex sexual offences.
The First Minister will say sorry at Holyrood on November 7 to coincide with the launch of laws that would lead to all gay men convicted in Scotland receiving an automatic pardon.
But gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchel l bel ieves Scotland should also follow the example of other countries such as Germany in offering compensation to men who were prosecuted.
Germany’s parliament voted in June to offer 3000 euros in recognition of their suffering along with 1500 euros for every year spent in jail.
Tatchel l said: “Nicola Sturgeon is doing what Theresa May has declined to do.
“I applaud the First Minister for her unambiguous apology.
“It is recognition by the Scottish state that a grave injustice was done to many gay and bisexual men.
“But I urge the Scottish Government to consider some symbolic compensation for those men whose lives were ruined by homophobic laws.”
Private homosexual acts between men aged over 21 were decriminal ised in England and Wales in 1967 – but the law in Scotland was not changed until 1980.
The ages of consent were made the same in 2001.
Scottish LGBTI charity the Equality Network estimate thousands of men were convicted and that there are hundreds still alive with convictions on their records.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The First Minister will give a statement of apology to those convicted prior to 2001 under discriminatory laws against same-sex sexual activity that is now legal. The apology will be made on behalf of the Scottish Government for the treatment of homosexual men under previous governments and will coincide with the introduction of legislation to provide people convicted under these laws an automatic pardon.
“The Bill will right a historic wrong and give justice to those who found themselves unjustly criminalised simply because of who they loved.”
The law will only apply to men because gay women were never criminalised.
Justice Secretary Michael Matheson confirmed the new legislation last October.
The plan has become known as the Turing Bill after World War II codebreaker Alan Turing, who was pardoned after his death for gross indecency with a 19-year-old man in 1952.
Matheson announced plans for automatic pardons just days af ter simi la r legislation was scuppered at Westminster.
The private member’s bill would have pardoned all men living with UK convictions for same-sex offences committed before the law was changed.
However the UK Government, who have their own plan for posthumous pardons, “talked out” the bill in the Commons resulting in it fal ling at its f irst parliamentary hurdle.
Tim Hopkins, director of the Equality Network, said: “We welcome the imminent publication of this bill, and we particularly welcome the announcement today that the First Minister wi l l apologise in the Parliament to all those who were convicted under these discriminatory laws.
“The apology is important because it shows that it was the discriminatory laws that were wrong and not the consensual relationships that were made criminal by those laws.” WHY CHOOSE US?