Man Mistaken For Muslim Is Threatened With Racist, Anti-Islam Vandalism

A man who returned home from a brief vacation found his house in Oregon had been broken into and vandalized with expletive-laden racist and anti-Islam graffiti that called him a "Muslim" and a "terrorist." However, the victim's faith is not Islam.

"I'm not Muslim," 33-year-old Hasel Afshar told local news outlet Pamplin Media Group. "I just grow a beard."

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Afshar, who was born in Iran and raised as a member of the Baha'I religion, came home to spray painted messages telling him to "get out" and a threatening note left under seven bullets arranged in a cross. "If I see you here next month, I will shoot you and burn your house," the anonynous note said.

Afshar said he now plans to sell his home in the city of Troutdale and move out of the country after having lived in the U.S. since 2010.

"I'm not going to be a hero and stay here and fight about it." he said. "I'm not going to sit here and wait for someone to shoot me."

The break-in and vandalism were reported on Tuesday to local law enforcement, which was investigating the entire episode as a "bias crime." A national advocacy group subsequently called for a federal probe.

"The FBI should join in the investigation of this apparent hate crime in order to demonstrate that the rights and safety of American Muslims, and those perceived to be Muslim, will be protected," Council on American-Islamic Relations National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said in a brief statement Wednesday.

A similar situation recently unfolded when a different family returned home after a weekend trip and found their apartment had been broken into and vandalized with anti-Muslim spray painted messages of hate.

Read: Virginia Man Has Face Bitten In Anti-Muslim Attack

"Fuck Muslims" was sprayed on a wall and a copy of the Koran was dfound estroyed when the family entered their home in Fairfax County, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Mahrukh and her husband Shoaib, who only gave NBC Washington their first names to protect their full identities, live at the home with their two young children. The family is Muslim.

"We were in complete shock. It's a dream. We're just going to open our eyes and it's all going to go away," said Mahrukh. "Especially when we saw that written on the wall and the Quran torn to pieces on the floor, and my painting just torn apart and on the floor, that was just shocking."

Like police in Oregon, local officials were treating the incident as a "bias incident."

There were more than 7,100 victims of hate crimes in the U.S. in 2015, from when the most recent statistics maintained by the FBI are available. Of that number, nearly 20 percent were targeted because of their religion.