'Mohamad' barred from Bush fund-raiser

A group of lawmakers, including presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, are asking the White House to explain why a hotel employee named Mohamad was barred from working at a Bush fund-raiser.

The White House says it is examining a discrimination complaint brought by nine House members on behalf of Mohamad Pharoan, a waiter at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Baltimore.

Pharoan, 58, a naturalized citizen from Syria, claims he was sent home before the Dec. 5 fund-raiser because he is a Muslim.

Ann Roman, spokeswoman for the Secret Service, insists, however, Pharoan was released because his name did not show up on the Secret Service list of scheduled workers at the hotel.

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"His exclusion was in no way related to his ethnic and religious background," Roman said, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

In a televised interview with CNN, Pharoan said nobody gave him an explanation except his manager.

"He asked me a question, 'Is your name Mohamad?' And he knew my name, so that gave me [the reason] why they are sending me home."

Pharoan told the Washington Post he arrived for work dressed in a tuxedo about four hours before the mid-day banquet, where the president raised more than $1 million for his re-election campaign

An employee from the hotel's personnel office checked off his name on a master list, Pharoan said. But 15 minutes later, the Hyatt's banquet manager pulled him aside and asked about his first name.

The manager then said, according to Pharoan, "I'm sorry, we cannot use you today – you have to go home."

Pharoan, who lives with his wife, Susan, and four children in Dundalk, Md., said he did not think the hotel's management was responsible.

"I believe it's not from the hotel, because we don't have this discrimination," he said. "They have nothing against me. I don't smoke, I don't drink. I don't even have a traffic ticket."

Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called the incident a "disgraceful act of apparent discrimination" against "an individual with no criminal record and a spotless employment history," according to the Post.

The incident seemed "to be based on nothing more than having the name Mohamad," he said, adding his group has asked the White House and the Secret Service for an explanation or an apology.