A Muslim worker was fired by a North Carolina company for requesting off for a major religious holiday, a new lawsuit claims.

Hussein Altaweel, an Iraqi native who came to the US as a refugee in 2013, claims Raleigh-based telecommunications contractor Longent LLC unjustly terminated him after he requested paid time off for Eid al-Adha in August 2018, according to a federal lawsuit obtained by the News & Observer.

“We have our own holidays in this country,” the company’s CEO told Altaweel, according to the complaint filed Thursday. “Aren’t those holidays enough for you?”

Altaweel, who became a naturalized citizen earlier this year, was hired by the company as a project manager in 2015. He previously volunteered as a translator for the US Marine Corps during the Iraqi War before joining the firm, the complaint states.

Altaweel had worked for Longent for nearly four years before seeking days off around Eid al-Adha, the dates of which vary each year depending on the phases of the moon, according to the complaint.

Altaweel requested the paid time off at least two weeks before the holiday, but Longent reps issued him an “employee improvement action form” in November 2018 for not making the request ahead of time, his attorney claims.

The request was ultimately denied, despite other workers being granted timely approval for paid comp time to celebrate Christian and Jewish holidays, according to the lawsuit.

Altaweel was then fired by the company some six months later after requesting time off as his daughter was hospitalized during the first week of Ramadan in early May. Longent cited the “employee improvement action form” filed a year earlier in his termination, the lawsuit claims.

“As a volunteer interpreter for the Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Mr. Altaweel risked his life for this country,” attorney Joseph Budd told the newspaper in a statement. “He did that and subsequently became a citizen because he believes in our country’s promise that he will be able to pursue a career based solely on his abilities and free from the influence of prejudice. Unfortunately, his former employer did not live up to our ideals, promise or law.”

Altaweel was also subjected to crude jokes about his dietary restrictions, including invitations by the company’s CEO to try the pork he brought for lunch, the lawsuit claims.

The former project manager was also passed over for promotion in favor of a “less-qualified” non-Muslim whom Altaweel trained himself, according to the lawsuit, which alleges discrimination based on religion and national origin, retaliation and a hostile work environment.

A message seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned from Longent reps early Monday.