Chairman of Council of Islamic Ideology Dr. Raghib Naeemi said that government has authority, from an Islamic perspective, to curb the ways that lead to vice and evil acts. It can block access to immoral content.

Dr Naeemi went on to say that the app [VPN] should be banned as it sparked controversy, provided access to blasphemous content and used against national security.

He further stated that usage of any application or software which provide access to immoral and illegal content is against Sharia.

Earlier, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) kicked off blocking “illegal and unregistered VPNs” throughout the country, citing that such applications were being used by terrorists to facilitate terror acts and provide access to pornographic and blasphemous content.

Investigations reveal that terrorists use the VPNs to hide their identities to carry out their nefarious acts. The VPNs are also used to orchestrate propaganda and dissemination of the false information.

It was reported that the PTA had blocked over 100,183 URLs that contained blasphemous material, as well as 844,008 websites that had immoral content. It was also noted that around 20 million attempts were being made to access pornographic sites on daily basis from within Pakistan.