Force arg to bytes to support non-ASCII encoding
@@ -284,7 +284,7 @@ def _pysam_dispatch(collection,
if skip_next:
skip_next = False
continue
- if arg in SIMPLE_FLAGS or (len(arg) > 2 and arg.startswith('-@')):
+ if arg in SIMPLE_FLAGS or (len(arg) > 2 and force_bytes(arg).startswith(b'-@')):
continue
if arg in ARGUMENTS:
skip_next = True
