With a gilded halo of virtue, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) declared the use of VPNs as “un-Islamic” earlier this month.

Before the ink had dried on public reaction, the council’s chairman, Allama Raghib Naeemi, was quick to retract his statement, citing a clerical error. Well, to look at it from a purely syntactic standpoint, unless the error lay in the prefix “un” and they intended to hail VPNs as virtuous, the retraction serves no purpose other than bewilderment.

However, this confirmation and later recantation pose an even bigger question: Has the state truly reached a point where it must lean on an institution as marginal and largely symbolic as the CII to address dissent? Naturally, this move was intended to stultify the already building opposition to the current government generally and, more specifically, to further restrict the already banned social media app, X.

Dare we add that this is the same app that the government has banned and loves using (read: tweeting)? Just by way of rationale, if the app is supposedly guiding our malleable youth to descend into moral bankruptcy, why use it yourself?

The fallout

What is entirely remiss on the minds of those that occupy the power corridors is the hit to the economy, with the impact being felt most by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and IT companies. While many in Pakistan use VPNs primarily to access the bedevilled app X, VPNs, by their very function, serve as the arteries through which modern economies breathe. Take students, for instance, who use VPNs to access international resources — or, better yet, freelancers, who make up a significant portion of our digital exports.

For example, on June 3rd, 2023, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) imposed a ban on Wikipedia — the world’s largest free online knowledge repository — only to reverse the decision 48 hours later. In this window, students who needed to access Wikipedia for educational purposes had to turn to VPNs to be able to do so. What other recourse did they possibly have? Moreover, online learning platforms such as Coursera, Udemy, and edX, as well as research databases such as JSTOR and Elsevier, often impose country-specific restrictions, forcing students to use VPNs to bypass these geo-blocks for courses and certifications.

On the other plane, for freelancers to continue working, two things are essential: secure networks and consistent internet speeds. VPNs ensure both. In August of this year, the Pakistani government finally admitted to updating the Web Management System (WMS) ostensibly to enhance cyber-security. There is no way to tell whether the government was able to achieve its stated goal.

However, this “update” ended up bringing the internet down to sluggish speeds with constant disruptions across the country. VPNs were still able to provide freelancers with some breathing space, as they prevent ISPs from detecting online activity, thus avoiding bandwidth throttling. Further, VPNs encrypt data and provide freelancers with an additional layer of security — something appreciated by both freelancers and international clients alike. Such a move to target VPNs, especially following the government’s recent policy of updating the Web Management System to better restrict and control information flow, raises significant questions — more than it answers.

Proponents of this “ban” perilously narrow the scope of VPNs to merely accessing pornographic materials on the internet. Here, I will refrain from turning this article into a broader debate on whether it falls within the government’s purview to moral police its people. However, to claim that this alone is reason enough — while disregarding all the ways VPNs benefit the country, whether in terms of privacy, bandwidth optimisation, or economic contributions — and to advocate for banning them outright, is simply to miss the forest for the trees.

Many countries across the globe have implemented policies that achieve similar objectives without outright banning VPNs. For instance, Singapore employs a “light-touch approach,” filtering content at the ISP level. Similarly, under Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), a targeted regulatory framework is used to limit public access to “harmful” websites. Such policies are precisely designed to avoid the necessity of banning VPNs, acknowledging that the benefits of these tools vastly outweigh their potential harms.

In Pakistan, however, there is evidently little thought given to the fallout of these overarching bans.

The Ministry of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives recently highlighted that Pakistan accounts for only 0.12 per cent of global exports, down from 0.15pc in 2005. Meanwhile, Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (WISPAP), Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) and The Public Relations Events Digital Activation Association (PREDA) have warned the government that these disruptions could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan — ranging from unrecoverable financial loss to reputational loss. VPNs ensure global standards of data protection, privacy and cyber security, and any lapse could deter Pakistan’s digital export economy from reaching its projected goal of surpassing the $15 billion mark within the next five years. On the current trajectory, such measures are set to increase IT companies’ operational costs by $150 million.

The chronicles of Bannistan

This issue did not start with VPNs, nor will it end with it. In our long history, we have always found ourselves at a crossroads with technological advancements and the religious scholar’s reception of it. To quote a few examples, consider the camera, paintings, and speakers, and currently, there’s growing debate over whether cryptocurrency is permissible or not. Whatever the decision may be, I hope they will save us another “clerical error”.

Because at some point, the error stops being clerical and starts being clergical.

Last week, on Thursday, in a region neighbouring Afghanistan, Kurram, a convoy of some 200 vehicles was ambushed from all four sides, killing 43 and leaving another 30 badly wounded and injured — as of writing this report, the death toll from the latest flare-up has soared to 76. This came as a direct result of incendiary sectarian violence, which has afflicted the region for far too long now. It has further sent shockwaves across the country, leading to protests and demands for justice.

The CII stands as the sole constitutional body in Pakistan with representation from religious scholars across all schools of thought, tasked with advising the government based on the principles of the Quran and Sunnah. An issue as grave and serious as sectarian violence falls directly under its purview. Yet, who has not spoken about it until now?

As the sole representative constitutional body, it is their duty to the people and their posts to step in on an intellectual plane, take the reins, and engage and direct the discourse. Surely, this incident was a policy failure with a huge security lapse, but the underlying sentiments fuelling such brutality can be pacified. And perhaps maybe, that is the only long-term way we can tackle the fetishists of sectarian violence.

To make matters worse, mainstream coverage of the incident is lacking. The primary way information is being transmitted and received is through social media apps. And guess who almost just banned X from operating in Pakistan? The Council of Islamic Ideology.

The council can play a pivotal and seminal role in matters that warrant its attention. However, for that to ever happen, it will need to leave VPNs alone.

Header image created with generative AI