To the Editor:

Re “Imams at the Airport” (letter, April 23):

The letter writer is “shocked” that six imams were removed from an aircraft after loudly praying together in the boarding lounge; sitting well apart from one another in unassigned seats near exit doors (which could possibly be opened in flight, causing decompression); requesting seat-belt extensions (which could easily be used as weapons) that they then hid under their seats; and making anti-American comments.

He says that their actions were innocuous, that they were taken off the plane only because they were Muslims and that rabbis and Baptist ministers would not have been.

I find it shocking that the letter writer is shocked!

Any airline that would not have closely questioned such conduct by any group will not have me as a passenger. You do not have a right to fly after acting suspiciously.

Ron Johnstone
Santa Clara, Calif., April 23, 2007