theinquirer.net- - ONLINE encyclopaedia Wikipedia was switched off in China only a few days after it had been permitted by the country's censors.

The site's English version was unblocked last month, while the Chinese version became available late last week.

But, according to Prison Planet, Chinese people are complaining that the site had been blocked in several parts of China.

So far it is not clear if the problems are technical or if they are part of a formal ban as there has not been a comment from the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Information Industry.

However the Chinese often use a technical error message to cover up censorship and then deny it is censoring anything.