Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, delivered a lecture to the Maths Faculty via videolink earlier today, at the invitation of the Cambridge Ethics in Mathematics Society.

The programmer and journalist rose to notoriety in 2010 after his website published a number of secret documents which had been leaked to it by Chelsea Manning. He has been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012 under his right of asylum, after the Swedish Director of Public Prosecution issued a warrant for his arrest following allegations that he had sexually assaulted two women. Assange has denied the allegations of sexual assault.

Talks given by Assange in Cambridge have often been mired in controversy. A referendum was held in 2015 over whether or not the divisive figure should be allowed to be speak at the Union. Due to the allegations of sexual assault, the CUSU Women’s Campaign have in the past been particularly outspoken in their resistance to hosting Assange as a speaker.

When a similar controversy occurred in 2012, students petitioned the Union to revoke Assange’s invitation, and the then CUSU Women’s Officer Susy Langsdale accused the Union of “enabling the rebuilding of the public persona of an alleged rapist.”

As he did in his talk at the Cambridge Union, the Australian spoke via videolink from the Embassy.

Due to the divisive nature of the speaker, advertisement for this talk appears to have been limited. A University spokesperson insisted that the event would be “well-chaired” and that there would be “opportunity for open and robust questioning of the speaker by the audience.”

WomCam told the Tab that they would be speaking to the Faculty of Mathematics directly about the event.

Varsity has contacted the Ethics in Mathematics Society for comment.