Pakistan religious body issues ‘Diktat’ on using VPNs

Pakistan’s leading constitutional religious body, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), has reportedly issued an edict declaring the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to access blocked online content as “un-Islamic.” The CII, which advises parliament on aligning laws with Islamic principles, faced backlash for its stance on VPNs, which are often used to bypass censorship and access restricted websites. This announcement has also drawn sharp criticism from digital rights activists and even some religious scholars.