Nepal’s 14-year-old experiment in constitutional monarchy suffered a major assault on February 1, 2005 when King Gyanendra sacked the prime minister, formed a new cabinet composed largely of royalists, and established direct monarchical rule. This was followed by a declaration of a state of emergency as leading political leaders were placed under house arrest, media censorship was imposed, fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of assembly were suspended, and telephones (landlines and cellular) as well as the Internet were shut down.