MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – A 19-year New Zealander Lucas Pollard was mistaken for a Muslim because of his beard and was threatened with decapitation, the New Zealand Herald reports.
The incident happened when Pollard stopped at traffic lights at the intersection at the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
“I went to pick my brother up from karate and at a set of lights a carload of Aussies were yelling at me, calling me a Muslim, and said if I was walking they would have ran me over and cut my head off”, Polland said, as quoted by the New Zealand Herald.
Pollard told the angry crowd he was a Kiwi, but they just turned around and said “that’s all right, after these Muslims you c***s are next”, the New Zealand Herald reported.
“They were yelling and swearing and it was really scary because I’ve never been in that situation before and I definitely think they were being serious”, Pollard continued.
“People need to stop grouping all Muslims together because there are extremists in every part of society and they are a small portion of the overall population”, Pollard told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
Racial tensions are high in some parts of the country. Australian police are carrying out anti-terrorist raids in and around large Australian cities. The raids are linked to the Islamic State (IS) militants potentially recruiting foreign fighters among Australian citizens, reports the New Zealand Herald.
