Chairman Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Dr. Raghib Hussain Naeemi clarified the fatwa on using VPNs on Monday. He said the nature of being Islamic or un-Islamic depends on its usage.
Issuing a clarification, the CII chief said: “No matter if VPN is registered or unregistered, it will be un-Islamic if it is used for indecent content and false propaganda.” He offered this clarification while talking on a show on Geo News.
Stressing the need to block access to immoral and blasphemous content on the internet, the CII declared the use of VPN as un-Islamic.
“If you register the VPN and do positive criticism, then there is no harm,” he said, emphasizing on registration of the VPN.
He said that according to the reports submitted to him, there are nearly 15 million hits on indecent sites daily. Keeping this in view, CII decide to declare it un-Islamic.
Renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Tariq Jamil also questioned the fatwa on the use of VPN (Virtual Private Network). Speaking on private television, Maulana Tariq Jamil questioned the rationale behind the fatwa on the use of VPN by the Islamic Ideology Council.
He asserted that if VPNs are considered haram then mobile phones should be put under this category as they can be used to access similar restricted content. He criticized the fatwa as the “narrow-minded” stance.
Read more: Maulana Tariq Jamil disapproves of fatwa on VPN
He further pointed out that mobile phones posed far more serious challenges due to their capacity to access harmful or inappropriate material, which could be more detrimental than VPN usage.
Maulana Tariq Jamal expressed his lack of knowledge regarding the specific religious council. He, however, reiterated his stance against the ban on VPNs.
Pakistan’s top advisory body on religious affairs, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), announced on Friday that using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access blocked online content is against Islamic law.