Human Rights Watch media bias and reliability
The rating organisations do not give Human Rights Watch one shared verdict in the records we hold. Their published ratings are Ad Fontes Media: Left; Media Bias/Fact Check: Leans left. We have seen it on 8 published stories of ours.
The short answers
Is Human Rights Watch biased?
The rating organisations do not give Human Rights Watch one shared verdict in the records we hold. Their published ratings are Ad Fontes Media: Left; Media Bias/Fact Check: Leans left. An outlet rating describes a broad pattern in its output, not every article it publishes.
Is Human Rights Watch left or right?
The rating organisations do not give Human Rights Watch one shared verdict in the records we hold. Their published ratings are Ad Fontes Media: Left; Media Bias/Fact Check: Leans left. In the three-way grouping used on story pages, that puts it under Left.
Is Human Rights Watch reliable?
The factual-reliability assessments we hold for Human Rights Watch are Ad Fontes Media: High factuality; Media Bias/Fact Check: High factuality. These are outlet-level assessments, not a guarantee that every report is correct.
What Human Rights Watch has been covering
Our account of each story, written from every outlet that ran it, with Human Rights Watch’s own report linked underneath.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has secured a fourth term as Brazil's president, defeating right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro challenged the election results, while international leaders congratulated Lula on his victory and commitment to democracy.
Human Rights Watch reported it asBrazil: Lula Should Focus on Human Rights in New Term (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
Senegal's parliament amended a law to double the maximum prison sentence for consensual same-sex acts to 10 years. Human Rights Watch documented arrests, forced HIV testing of detainees, and a rise in fear and stigma, impacting access to healthcare.
Human Rights Watch reported it asSenegal: Brutal Crackdown Violates LGBT People’s Rights (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced it has not been invited to observe the US midterm elections in November. This marks the first time since 2002 that the body has not been invited to monitor federal elections in the United States.
Human Rights Watch reported it asUS: Trump Administration Rejects External Election Observers (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
The International Criminal Court convicted Mahamat Said Abdel Kani on four counts of crimes against humanity, including torture and unlawful imprisonment. He oversaw a detention centre where detainees suffered severe maltreatment during the Central African Republic's civil war.
Human Rights Watch reported it asCentral African Republic: ICC Verdict in Seleka Commander Case (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh held a rally to demand safe return to Myanmar, marking the ninth anniversary of Rohingya Genocide Day. Most fled Myanmar in 2017 after a government crackdown, and the International Court of Justice is hearing a genocide case against Myanmar.
Human Rights Watch reported it as9 Years On: Accountability Needed for Myanmar Military Junta’s Atrocities Against the Rohingya (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
Four advocacy groups, including Human Rights Watch, filed a lawsuit in New York on 11 August 2026 challenging the Trump administration’s sanctions against the International Criminal Court. The plaintiffs argue the measures violate US constitutional rights and hinder prosecutions of war crimes. The administration calls the ICC a threat to US sovereignty.
Human Rights Watch reported it asLawsuit Challenging Executive Order 14,203 and ICC-Related Sanctions (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Lebanese rights groups say an Israeli strike that killed journalist Amal Khalil and wounded her colleague Zeinab Faraj in southern Lebanon was a deliberate attack on civilians. The Israeli military says its strikes targeted Hezbollah members.
Human Rights Watch reported it asLebanon: Israel’s Killing of Journalist an Apparent War Crime (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
A Malian court sentenced Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, known as Ras Bath, and Rokia Doumbia to ten years in prison, with three suspended, for criticising the ruling junta. The case highlights the junta’s crackdown on dissent since seizing power in 2020.
Human Rights Watch reported it asJournalist in Mali Sentenced to a Year in Prison (opens Human Rights Watch in a new tab)
Who says so
2 organisations have published a rating for this outlet, in their own words. Where they disagree, the disagreement is the useful part and it is left standing.
How reliably it reports fact
A rating of the newsroom in general, by others, and a different thing from the Trust score we publish on each story, which judges one piece of reporting.
High factuality
Who owns it
- Human Rights Watch, Inc.Independentdirect owner
Where it publishes from
What we have seen ourselves
Counted across the stories this site has published, which is the only denominator a reader can check: every one of them has a page, and every page lists the reports it was written from.
- Stories
- 8
- Reports listed
- 8
- We could read
- 0
- First seen
- 4 August 2026
8 of those reports were paywalled or blocked to us. Our reading of this outlet is built on the 0 we could open, not on everything it published.
On 2 of those stories, outlets rated left were largely absent from the coverage and Human Rights Watch ran the story anyway.
Across the 8 stories of ours where at least three of the reports we listed carried a time, we logged no report earlier than Human Rights Watch’s on 1 of them. Overall it filed a median of 16 hours after the earliest report we logged.
Measured 6 November 2026. Last seen in a coverage list 31 October 2026. Ratings pulled 5 November 2026.
Other outlets rated the same way
Publishers carrying the same published leaning as Human Rights Watch, also publishing from United States, ordered by how often we have seen them on a story. Sharing a rating is not the same as being alike.
Think this page is wrong?
The leanings above are published by AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, and we republish them rather than make them. If you think one is misapplied, the strongest place to say so is with the organisation that made it, and every verdict here links to their page.
What we are responsible for is everything else: the ownership chain, where Human Rights Watch publishes from, which of our stories we have listed it on, and whether we have the right publisher at all. Tell us what is wrong and an editor reads it.
Report something wrong on this page
Anything we correct is written up in the public corrections log. We do not publish reader votes as a rating, because an unattributed rating is the thing this site exists to argue against.
Every rating on this page is a named third party’s published work, republished with its author and, where one exists, a link to it. Our own coverage record is the section we measure ourselves. Neither is a judgement of any individual report: those are scored story by story, and the reasoning is on our methodology page.