The government has unveiled an ambitious program to revamp or expand 550 mental health institutions to hospitalize those suffering from mental problems.

The move, although welcome, has been tainted by association with public security safeguards following a recent top-level meeting of concerned departments that had put "comprehensive administration" of public security high on its agenda.

The emphasis, as is evident from media reports, is on preventing any threat to society from those who are suffering from mental health problems. The logic, though understandable, has led to justifiable suspicion.

Although experts have called on relevant authorities to take into account psychosis as a pervasive medical, and increasingly social, phenomenon, the close cooperation being urged between mental health institutions and public security departments has fanned fears of civil rights abuse.

The conference has obligated mental homes to "closely cooperate" with relevant law enforcement departments.

This is certainly worrying.

Mental health institutions are thoroughly capable of maintaining order on their own premises. No reports have emerged about hospitalized patients threatening public order. Therefore, police intervention, as many view it, is largely redundant.

The undefined nature of "cooperation" certainly has the potential to infringe upon civil liberties, as evidenced by multiple instances wherein perfectly sane citizens have been thrown into mental asylums just because they had dared to question high-handed officials.

In order to ensure that no citizen is wrongly labeled "mentally ill" and confined to a mental health institution, such cooperation must be subject to extremely strict oversight, by qualified health professionals as well as the lay public.