2009 Nobel Peace Prize the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize closed just 11 days after Obama took office. There were 205 nominations for the 2009 award, which included Chinese and Afghan civil rights activists and African politicians. Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba, Afghanistan's Sima Samar, Chinese dissident Hu Jia and Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Morgan Tsvangirai had been speculated to be favorites for the award. The five members of the Nobel Committee are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament to roughly reflect the party makeup of that body. The 2009 Committee comprised two members of the Norwegian Labor Party, one from the left-wing Socialist Left Party, one
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