2009 Nobel Peace Prize of race, religion, skin colour, he has an open attitude." Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Indian President Pratibha Patil and Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres sent congratulatory messages to Obama, but Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters that "the decision was taken hastily and the award was [too] early." In Latin America, former Cuban President Fidel Castro called the award "positive" and said the prize should be seen as a criticism to the "genocidal policy" carried out by past U.S. presidents. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said the award was a surprise and perhaps premature.
2010 Nobel Peace Prize celebration dinner in Beijing, attended by 20 people, was broken up by police, and the attendees were detained. The Chinese media avoided the story of Liu's Peace Prize, in marked contrast with their previous announcements of other recipients of Nobel Prizes. The official Xinhua News Agency downplayed all but the literature prize, and most other mainland news portals followed the Xinhua lead; popular internet portals such as Sina.com and NetEase deleted pages dedicated to stories related to all five Nobel Prizes. According to a well-informed Twitter user, cited by the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong, the