American Muslim leaders walked out of a White House meeting in protest on Thursday after a Secret Service agent suddenly removed a Muslim student with their group, without explanation.
The student, Abdullah Al-Arian, 20, had joined the Muslim leaders for a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building with members of the staff of the White House Office of Faith- Based and Community Initiatives. Early in the meeting, for which all the visitors had been given security clearances, a Secret Service agent appeared, asked for Mr. Al-Arian and escorted him from the room.
Secret Service officials later apologized for what they said was a mistake, but would not elaborate. The Rev. Mark Scott, deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, invited the group to return and resume the meeting.
But the Muslim leaders refused and issued a statement saying, "This incident is the latest in an unfortunate pattern of exclusion by the Bush administration."
Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who was at the meeting, said: "They want to dictate the terms to us, and we're saying nobody should tell us who can be at the table and who cannot. We determine who should be at the table."
Mr. Al-Arian is a political science major at Duke University who is spending the summer as an intern for Representative David E. Bonior, Democrat of Michigan.
His father is Sami Al-Arian, a professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida and a pro-Palestinian organizer who has campaigned against the government's use of secret evidence to detain political organizers in the United States, a cause also taken up in legislation introduced by Mr. Bonior.
The senior Mr. Al-Arian is an associate of Mazen Al-Najjar, who was detained for three and a half years by the American government on secret evidence, never charged, and then released by Attorney General Janet Reno late last year.
The intern, Abdullah Al-Arian, said his expulsion from the White House meeting was a shock.
"I would really like to know why," Mr. Al-Arian said. "I'm an American citizen. I've never been involved in any political activity other than my new internship on Capitol Hill. I think it's a really sad day for freedom in this country."
Last week, his father was among a group of Muslim leaders admitted to the White House for a political briefing. But several Muslim leaders said they were insulted at that meeting, too, when Vice President Dick Cheney did not appear, as promised.
In the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush reached out to Muslim Americans when, in a televised debate, he mentioned his opposition to secret evidence. He includes mosques when he speaks of religious initiatives.
Muslim groups have been generally supportive of the president's initiative but sought more information about it at the White House meeting.
Representative Bonior issued a statement saying: "I am very troubled that Abdullah was forced to leave the White House with no explanation. There have been too many instances where Muslims have been stopped, harassed or discriminated against for no apparent reason. This happens in airports, on our highways, and now we see it happens in the Bush White House."