Kilotest: Diagnoses of focusable element hidden violation by HTML element 523 on Freedom House page

Basics

About the page

• URL: https://freedomhouse.org/
• Tested 3 days ago on 2026-10-07 at 21:42 by job 261007T2129-kjk
• Summary of results:
  • Rule engines:
    • Called: 12
    • Were able to test: 12
    • Reported any rule violations: 12
  • Violations: 1243
  • Violators: 363
  • Issues: 64
• Download the full technical report (JSON)

About the issue

• Why it matters: Keyboard-only user cannot navigate properly to the operable items
• Priority: highest
• Related WCAG standard: 4.1.2
• Reported by 6 rule engines (Accessibility Checker + Alfa + ASLint + Axe + Pour + SureA11y)
• Violations: 36
• Violators: 18

About the violator

• Tag name: A
• Text: Xi Jinping in Washington, DC: Countering Beijing’s Efforts to Undermine Free Speech Beyond Its Borders … September 17, 2026
• Start tag: <a href="/article/xi-jinping-washington-dc-countering-beijings-efforts-undermine-free-speech-beyond-its" tabindex="0" aria-hidden="true">
• XPath: [not obtained]
• Bounding box: x = 694, y = 4130, width = 242, height = 161
• Reported by Accessibility Checker + Axe + Pour + SureA11y

Diagnoses

Here is how rule engines diagnose the focusable element hidden issue for HTML element 523 of the Freedom House page.

1. ARIA hidden element must not be focusable or contain focusable elements; Focusable content should have tabindex="-1", be removed from the DOM, or not be hidden with aria-hidden

   Rule engine: Axe (Deque)

   Rule: aria-hidden-focus

2. Element "a" should not be focusable within the subtree of an element with an 'aria-hidden' attribute with value 'true'

   Rule engine: Accessibility Checker (IBM)

   Rule: aria_hidden_nontabbable

3. Nothing focusable may sit inside aria-hidden="true"

   Rule engine: Pour (David Yarham and Geoffrey Crofte)

   Rule: aria-hidden-focus

4. aria-hidden a is focusable (1 focusable element(s)).

   Rule engine: SureA11y (Jorge Rumoroso)

   Rule: aria-hidden-focus