Human Rights Watch’s recent report on telecom surveillance in Ethiopia focuses a lot of attention on the role of Chinese contractors who are building out the country’s new communications infrastructure. One of the co-authors of that report, Cynthia Wong, joins us for more on the role of Chinese tech companies operating in Ethiopia and her recommendations for what should be done to protect Ethiopians’ civil and political rights.
To download a copy of the Human Rights Watch report co-authored by Cynthia Wong please click here.
Cynthia M. Wong is the senior researcher on the Internet and human rights. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Wong worked as an attorney at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and as director of their Project on Global Internet Freedom. She conducted much of the organization’s work promoting global Internet freedom, with a particular focus on international free expression and privacy. She also served as co-chair of the Policy & Learning Committee of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a multi-stakeholder organization that advances corporate responsibility and human rights in the technology sector. Prior to joining CDT, Wong was the Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at Human Rights in China (HRIC). There, she contributed to the organization’s work in the areas of business and human rights and freedom of expression online.
Wong earned her law degree from New York University School of Law, where she served as a senior articles editor for NYU’s Review of Law & Social Change. She has been admitted to the New York State Bar. Prior to law school, she worked as an electrical engineer in the private sector. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
