CLAIMS THAT A mosque in Belfast was set alight during the recent riots are false, according to both the mosque and the city’s firefighters.

However, the riots destroyed multiple businesses in Belfast, including a number that were set on fire on the same night that it was falsely reported that the mosque had been set alight. A petrol bomb was thrown at a different mosque days after the rumours of the initial fire had already been spread. 

“It’s alleged that there is a mosque in the city of Belfast on fire,” the description beneath one video posted to Facebook which was seen more than 18,000 times reads. 

Another video viewed more than 6,200 times on Facebook also described showing the “aftermath of a fire in a local mosque” in Belfast.

Multiple posts making the same claim were also shared on X where they were seen thousands of times, according to metrics on the site.

However, these reports were false.

The videos on Facebook were geolocated to the Donegall Road, near the Belfast Islamic Centre. However, that building had not been set alight.

A spokesperson for the mosque said that protesters had marched toward the centre but police blocked their way and did not let them come close to the building. They said that neither the Belfast Islamic Centre nor any other mosque in Belfast had been set on fire.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service also told The Journal that they have “had no such incident reports” involving mosques in Belfast being set ablaze.

Disorder in Belfast continued in the days after the false rumour of the mosque fire spread, with reports of further criminal damage to property, including cars being set on fire and houses and businesses attacked.

A mosque about 10 kilometers east of Belfast in the town of Newtownards was attacked at around 1am last Friday, a week after the initial rumours about the first mosque had spread. A petrol bomb was thrown but failed to ignite and racist graffiti was daubed on the building, the PSNI said in a statement.

 The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) have said that they have had to respond to numerous race-related hate crimes during the riots which often began as anti-immigration protests.

One manager of a supermarket which was extensively damaged by fire said that the Islamic community was being targeted.

The riots in Belfast were part of a wave of far-right violence in England and Northern Ireland, spurred by a knife attack that killed three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club at the northern English seaside town of Southport, which was falsely rumoured to have been carried out by an asylum seeker.

UK police have said that the suspect was born in Cardiff, Wales.

 The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here.