A list of addresses thought to belong to immigrants and their families was shared online during violent anti-immigration protests that descended into rioting in and around Northern Ireland’s capital Belfast this week.
The unrest was sparked by a brutal knife attack on Monday. That attack, a horrific video of which has been shared widely online, sparked two nights of unrest on the streets of Belfast, with groups of often-masked rioters setting fire to homes, a bus and trash cans, and throwing rocks at police and blocking roads.
CBS News learned Thursday that a list of addresses believed to be the homes of immigrants, including families, was circulated online among people calling for mass protests. A copy of the list found online by CBS News, circulated on closed social media networks such as WhatsApp, includes more than two dozen addresses in Belfast.
In another example, an account on X shared a list early Wednesday morning of seven names and addresses of what it claimed were immigration lawyers and law firms in Northern Ireland, urging “patriots” to “do with that what you will.”
After her labor union reported that a nurse going to work at the Ulster Hospital had been chased by masked men, the chief executives of Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care service said in a joint statement Wednesday that some international staff felt intimidated and “too frightened to come to work.”
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Due to the privacy lent by the closed social media platforms used to circulate the lists, CBS News could not determine how many people shared the information, or who originated it.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said in a statement Wednesday that it was aware of some social media users sharing addresses online amid the protests.
“Highlighting properties in this way is totally unacceptable,” the PSNI said, adding that it had received calls from families, homeowners and neighbors who were “extremely distressed as a result of this reckless activity.”
On Monday, a member of the U.K. Parliament from Belfast condemned the unrest in her city as “a race-based pogrom.”
Claire Hanna, a member of the Social Democratic & Labour Party, told BBC’s “Newsnight” program that protesters had gone door to door looking for immigrants.
“Groups of masked men burning families out of their homes is nothing less than disgusting cowardice,” she said.
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The suspect in the stabbing attack is a 30-year-old Sudanese man who had claimed asylum in the United Kingdom. He has been charged with attempted murder, threatening to kill, and carrying a knife. The man entered Northern Ireland after applying for asylum and, in 2023, he was granted a five-year visa to remain in the U.K.
Graphic video of the incident shows an attacker straddling the victim on the ground while slashing at his head and neck with a knife, in what has widely been described as an attempted beheading. Civilians intervened before police arrived shortly after, and they have been credited with saving the man’s life.
The video spread quickly online and prominent figures — including Elon Musk and British politician Nigel Farage, an ally of President Trump — were among those to share it and call for mass protests.
Hanna, the Belfast lawmaker, called out Musk, Farage and British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as some of the “negative actors online and politicians locally who don’t really care what communities in north Belfast have been through,” whom she said were fomenting the unrest online.
CBS News has not seen any indication of those prominent public figures sharing address lists online.
Police said the suspect used a kitchen knife in the attack and the victim was blinded in the left eye and left with deep wounds in his head, face and back. The PSNI said no motive has been determined for the knife attack. An investigation is ongoing, but they said it was not believed to be terrorism.
The Belfast unrest came just a week after separate anti-immigration protests in Southampton, southern England, over the killing of college student Henry Nowak.
Isabel Infantes/REUTERS 
Nowak, who was white, was killed in December by Vickrum Digwa, a British-born Sikh, who falsely claimed to police that he had been the victim of a racist assault by Nowak.
When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded Nowak as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him. He died of his injuries, and despite Digawa’s British nationality, far-right activists and some politicians cited the case as an example of “two-tier” policing, implying that White Britons are treated differently.
The police department involved in the incident firmly denied that accusation, but violent protests erupted, fueled by calls online for anti-immigration demonstrations.