Revealed: online campaign urged far right to attack China’s opponents in UK

Social media incitement following last summer's riots appears to be new tactic against Hong Kong exiles

One morning last August, a troubling message appeared in a social media group for Hongkongers in the UK. It was already a tense time to be an immigrant. Rioters, propelled by false claims online that the man who had murdered children in Southport was an asylum seeker, were descending on hotels housing refugees, trying to burn them alive.

The message alerted the Hongkongers to posts on far-right channels suggesting some new targets. They all help refugees who come to the UK to take resources," one of them read.