On the first anniversary of the king's seizure of power, international media freedom groups have condemned what they say is "a year of repression of Nepal's media". The International Mission for Press Freedom and Free Expression in Nepal which visited Nepal last year to monitor the state of the media.

"Nepal's journalists have been confronted with an autocratic regime for the past 365 days. During this period, the independent press has lost most of the legal and constitutional protection it had acquired since 1990, more than a thousand journalists have lost their jobs and the government-induced economic pressure has increased on many media companies," the mission said in a statement.