Gyanendra denied Tuesday's takeover was a coup, although soldiers surrounded the houses of former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other government leaders.
The king suspended several provisions of the constitution, including freedom of the press, speech and expression, peaceful assembly, the right to privacy, and the right against preventive detention, according to a statement from the Narayanhiti Palace.
Three human rights groups ? Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists ? expressed concern that the monarch's moves put "the Nepalese people at even greater risk of gross human rights abuses.