The controversial photo which appeared in Chinese newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh , where the image of sacked deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was replaced with current Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was meant to portray the unity of Barisan Nasional, said Sin Chew Forum editor Ooi Chun Lin.

Ooi said this in a message he posted on Kopitiam , a Chinese discussion group on the Internet, in response to messages of complaints from Sin Chew Jit Poh 's readers.

The original photo, taken at the launch of the BN election manifesto in 1995, shows Anwar standing beside caretaker Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad along with key leaders of the BN coalition. However, Sin Chew Jit Poh had crudely swapped the image of Anwar with Abdullah in the photo which appeared on the front page of its "Sin Chew Forum" section on Nov 14.

Ooi argued that he had to use the Photoshop software to change Anwar's image because the original photo was no longer relevant to the current situation since the former deputy prime minister is no more part of the BN leadership.

"In addition, there is no caption to specifically point out what the photo is all about," he wrote.

He defended his decision to doctor the photo because it was used to illustrate a series of articles discussing the coming elections. It was not meant to reflect the reality, he wrote.

Sin Chew Jit Poh deputy chief editor Siew Nyoke Chew told malaysiakini that the doctored photo should not be compared to similar acts of deception in communist countries where images of out-of-favour leaders were often removed from official photographs.

She defended Ooi's decision to change the images on the photo. "He had no bad intention," she said. "Ooi did not know that images in such photos cannot be altered to suit the political circumstances."

According to James Wong, senior writer of Sin Chew Jit Poh , the problem was due to the lack of professional training of journalists in the country. "They are not aware that such actions are wrong," he said. He however added that the newspaper should apologise to its readers.

Tan Kim Song, a Chinese newspaper columnist, joined other outraged readers in criticising Sin Chew Jit Poh . The act of doctoring photos is completely against the professional ethics of journalists, he said.