Use of VPNs not “un-Islamic”, CCI blames “typo” for its earlier edict on VPNs

In what seems to be an attempt to retract its statement made earlier, Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Chairman Dr Raghib Hussain Naeemi denied declaring the virtual private networks (VPNs) “un-Islamic” and blamed it on a “typo” for causing confusion in the council’s decree amid the government’s deadline to block all unregistered encrypted networks this month.

“No one has declared the VPNs against shariah or un-Islamic,” said Naeemi in a press conference in Islamabad, adding: “A typing error in our previous statement created a misunderstanding after ‘not’ was omitted from it.”

CII has come under a lot of criticism for its recent edict on VPNs. Senate Standing Committee called it “unreasonable” while renowned religious scholar Maulana Tariq Jamil termed it as a “narrow-minded stance”.