2/17/2005: The authorities in Nepal have cut off all telephone lines again on a day of planned pro-democracy protests. The human rights situation in Nepal, where soldiers are battling Maoist guerrillas in a nine-year conflict, had worsened after the king assumed absolute power and suspended civil liberties, Amnesty International officials said after a tour of the country.
Amnesty International | AI requests urgent audience with King | Nepal's media 'suffocated'

2/16/2005: Nepali police arrested two senior politicians on Wednesday, two days ahead of planned protests by their party against King Gyanendra's assumption of complete power in the Himalayan kingdom this month. Policemen arrested Arjun Narsingh K.C., a senior leader of the centrist Nepali Congress party that has planned peaceful protests on Friday to force the king to restore democracy.

2/13/2005: Nepal's Maoist rebels called a national strike and began an indefinite "blockade" of the capital, Kathmandu, at the weekend - a move that could raise prices and worsen the state of emergency imposed by the king. The rebels launched the action to mark 10 years since the start of their "people's war" to topple Nepal's monarchy, a campaign that has claimed nearly 11,000 lives in the Himalayan nation.

2/5/2005: A student demonstration at Prithvi Narayan Campus in Pokhara was fired on by a military helicopter gunship leaving several protestors badly injured if not dead; all FM radio broadcasts outside of Kathmandu are blocked and those broadcasting in Kathmandu play only entertainment-oriented programmes; the BBC FM station recently established in Kathmandu is forbidden from broadcasting the news in Nepali; news stands outside of the Valley have been closed; and a 72-hour blockade on long-distance public bus travel in and out of Kathmandu is in place.Read More On Indymedia.org
Nepal’s Maoists have warned the king to reverse power grab or face a blockade.

On February 1st 2005, King Gyanendra of Nepal sacked the government, suspended democracy for three years and declared a state of emergency. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other leading members of the Congress party have been placed under house arrest and most of the the rank and file members of the Congress party have been put in jail. Human rights activists said a number of prominent campaigners had been taken in for questioning by the security services. "Nepalis have had their most basic rights taken away. With his newly restored medieval powers, Gyanendra has 'suspended' not only the right to free speech, but freedom of thought. He has subjected the press to strict censorship. The papers carried fawning accounts yesterday of the king's announcement that he was taking power. The king 'suspended' the right to assemble peacefully, and the right to privacy." Phone, television and internet services have been suspended and most Nepalese outside of Nepal are unable to communicate with their relatives.

King Gyanendra came to power in June 2001 when Crown Prince Dipendra went on a shooting-spree assassinating 11 members of the royal family including King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya before shooting himself. Gayendra was already unpopular and his unexpected rise to power gave support to the Maoist insurgency (in 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal had launched a "people's war" aimed at overthrowing the existing monarchic state and establishing a Maoist state). In 2002, Gyanendra removed Sher Bahadur Deuba from his role as Prime Minister for the first time. Public street protests ensued, and Gyanendra reinstated Deuba in 2004, charging him with instituting elections by March of 2005 and establishing peace talks with Maoist rebels. With this new state of emergency, the Maoists are finding themselves allied with the government they once fought against the increasingly tyrannical monarch.

Statement By Communist Party of Nepal | Wikipedia | Reports From The People's War in Nepal | Nepal's media subjected to total censorship | Too scared to protest in Nepal | King Gyanendra: The absolute monarch