On the morning of Feb. 1, 2005, after watching King Gyanendra on TV as he assumed executive power, dismissed the parliament, declared a state of emergency and suspended press freedom in Nepal, I headed to my newsroom in downtown Kathmandu. I saw school children returning home, a sign that the schools had been closed.

When I entered my office complex, soldiers greeted me instead of the usual security guards. Kantipur Publications, Nepal's largest media group, was being heavily guarded by the Royal Nepal Army, which was supporting the king.

Rumors started to fly and we journalists were in a daze, trying to figure out what to write for our publications -- in my case, for the Nepal Weekly magazine. To make matters worse, the royal government had shut down all telecommunications, including the Internet, and Nepal's half-dozen TV stations and its ubiquitous FM radio stations were banned from broadcasting news.

In what age are we living? we asked one another, obviously knowing the answer but finding ourselves unable to comprehend the king's clumsy attempt to claim total power. I and my colleagues were suddenly rendered incommunicado and subjected to heavy-handed censorship.

But as they say, every crisis is an opportunity. The coup also provided an occasion to showcase the best in Nepali journalism and we continued to probe our new, more limited boundaries.

Assistant Editor Shekhar Kharel and I drove to a renowned sociologist's home to interview him for a story about the widening gap between the poor and rich in Kathmandu. We apologized for the impromptu meeting but could not call him on the phone in advance.

In the evening, as our deadline neared, army officers who knew nothing about journalism reviewed our news report to make sure the king looked as blameless as possible.

Fortunately, such overt censorship lasted only a month, and by April 2006, nationwide protests forced the king to step down. The journalists and news organizations that had helped gather mass support to restore democracy and preserve press freedom joined the celebrations.

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The royal coup of 2005 was not the first time Nepali journalists had to face censorship, threats and worse. Nor would it be the last time.

Nepal's media came of age in the 1990s after 30 years of censorship under authoritarian rule. Mass demonstrations brought down the repressive Panchayat system of government and began Nepal's fitful experiment with democracy.

Cycles of government repression followed but the press gained more and more freedom during the 1990s as the well-respected King Birendra opened the political system and allowed contending political parties to form.

By the late '90s, however, the biggest threat to the safety and independence of Nepal's journalists grew in the jungles far from Kathmandu. A Maoist insurgency, fed by the discontent of Nepal's impoverished majority and the constant bickering among Nepal's do-nothing political parties, began to attack all pillars of power, including the press.

Journalists, especially those critical of the leftist rebels, were threatened, murdered, kidnapped. As the Maoists rampaged, in 2001 the Nepali crown prince shot and killed his parents, his siblings and himself in the royal palace. Nepal seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

King Birendra's brother, the incompetent and widely disliked Gyanendra, ascended the throne as the insurgency continued to grow and the political parties continued to squabble. The tumult came to a head and Gyanendra decided to take over. That's when the soldiers invaded my newsroom.

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Ironically, the royal coup of 2005 brought Nepal's journalists, politicians and rebels together in a common cause. People were sick of both the king and the insurgency and they wanted to find some way forward that might bring peace, stability and freedom.

The Maoists joined the protests that brought down the king in 2006 after leading a 10-year insurgency that claimed more than 14,000 lives. They vowed to pursue their goals through the political process, a promise they have not always kept.

In early October of last year, trade unions affiliated with the Maoists staged a strike demanding more pay and permanent job status for news publication delivery boys. Union members disrupted the operations of Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, Nepal's leading dailies, by trying to burn down the building of Kantipur Publications and by damaging the vehicle of the managing director. It was the first time the papers had been forced to stop publication.

The strike ended only after the publishers and editors met with Maoist chairman Prachanda (literally "the fierce one") to work out a settlement.

Nepali journalists continue to be intimidated, kidnapped and sometimes killed.

On Oct. 4, Birendra Shah, a reporter with Drishti Weekly, was murdered, allegedly by Maoists. According to the South Asian Media Commission, three journalists in Nepal were killed last year, ranking Nepal fourth in number of journalists murdered because of their work behind only Pakistan (7), Sri Lanka (6) and Afghanistan (5). During the 10-year insurgency, more than two dozen journalists had been killed and hundreds of others arrested, jailed or rendered jobless.

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In elections last month, the Maoists won the largest number of seats in a constituent assembly that will write a new constitution for Nepal. They fell short of a majority and are attempting to form a coalition government with other political parties.

It is difficult to know what might come of the constitutional process, although voters expect a democratic republic with certain guaranteed rights, such as the right to speak freely and freedom of the press. One thing is certain: Nepal's 240-year-old monarchy will be abolished, as this was a central election theme for the Maoists.

As our nation is reborn, we Nepali journalists have never had a more critical role to play. We must make sure that our people know the pros and cons and trade offs of every decision, and we must hold our leaders accountable for everything they decide.

On this World Press Freedom Day 2008, nowhere do journalists face a more uncertain future than in Nepal. But nowhere are journalists more willing to fight for their rights.