2009 Nobel Peace Prize committee for a "hideous display of cynical politics". Stuart Rees, director of the Sydney Peace Foundation in Australia, questioned the award. "Perhaps the Nobel organisation wants to give him a magic wand. I think the guy is full of promise, but I don't think the promise has been realised yet particularly in regards the Middle East." In Asia and the Middle East: Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai said that Obama was the "appropriate" person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. "His hard work and his new vision on global relations, his will and efforts for creating friendly and good relations at
2010 Nobel Peace Prize engines for "Liu Xiaobo" in Chinese without attaching the words "Peace Prize," gave information about Liu. Yet most sites found "Liu" plus "Peace Prize" yield only the official foreign ministry response. CNN reported that any mention of "Nobel Prize" on microblogging sites was censored. One person claimed that his SIM card was deactivated after he sent a text message to a relative about the Nobel Peace Prize. Accustomed to circumventing Chinese internet censorship, bloggers and forum-users used variants of Liu's name and posted subtle or cryptic messages to express their elation about the award or sarcasm towards the state. The