how to prevent sshd from interpreting remote command as a user

I set up a dedicated ssh key pair for the purpose of forcing a specific command on a remote server. I added the public key to the remote server authorized_keys file along with a command option specifying the command to be execute when this key is used. The command is a shell script which requires a single command line argument that I'm expecting to get passed in the $SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND environment variable.

When I execute the ssh command from the client and specify the use of this specific key like this:

ssh -i id_rsa_mykey -o User=abc -o HostName=myhost xxx

The remote script executes as expected and is passed the xxx in the SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND variable.

If I attempt to pass the remote command an email address however the remote sshd is interpreting the value as a user@host and appears to attempt authentication on the part before the @ symbol and the remote command is never executed. /var/log/auth.log on the remote server has the error: Invalid user xxx from 192.168.0.1

How can I escape the @ symbol or otherwise not have sshd evaluate the value as a user@host and instead pass the value as is to the remote command?

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