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Hamza Kashgari, who fled his native Saudi Arabia, has been sent back to face a possible death penalty. He left the country, intending to seek political asylum in New Zealand, after a series of tweets on the Prophet Muhammad's birthday resulted in hundreds of death threats.

Kashgari was apprehended at the Kuala Lumpur airport Wednesday by the Malaysian authorities, at the request of Saudi Arabia, with whom Malaysia has no extradition treaty. Sunday morning, Saudi officials took custody of him at the airport and flew him back to Saudi Arabia in a private plane, according to a source close to the situation.

Because several weeks have passed without a TWiOT update, I am making this one a straight-ahead digest, listing the latest piece of news first.

Egyptian blogger receives International Press Freedom Award. The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression awarded Mohamed Abdelfattah the award for his work coverage of Khaled Said, a young man who was brutally beaten and killed by Egyptian police officers in Alexandria in June of 2010.

Burma unblocks websites. The Burmese government unblocked international media sites as well as websites run by Burmese exiles.

Brazilian blogger murdered. 36-year-old Brazilian blogger Ednaldo Figueira was shot down in the streets of his home town, Serra do Mel.

After receiving death threats, Figueira was shot six times on June 15 by gunmen on motorcycles outside his workplace. In addition to being a blogger, he was a newspaper editor and an official in a trade union. This is the second time a blogger has been murdered by his government or, in Figueira's case most likely organized crime figures attached to the government.

As I've stated elsewhere, we are a tech news blog, so humanitarian and political crises are not our bread and butter. That said, so much of the Jasmine Revolution has been augmented with social media that I think a brief (and insufficient) breakdown of what's happened in the last week would not be inappropriate. There is no new tech news here, only important news. The loss of lives that can't be undone. The tide of revolution seems to be breaking on a particularly rocky shore.

If you have different death-tolls, please post links in the comments

• Bahrain: 12; one reporter detained, another ejected (source, here and here)
• Egypt: 13 in Muslim-Christian riots, possibly fomented by disbanded security police, rapes (source and here)
• Libya: 1,000+; four reporters missing (source and here)
• Oman: 6 (source)
• Yemen: 40 (source)

Before covering the events that have taken place this week in Egypt, I think it's important to examine those stories that are in danger of being lost to the public's consciousness because of the dramatic nature of what's happening in Tahrir Square. Also, in one case, it's instructive to talk about one case which came about as a direct result of Egypt. In fact, let's start there, with Syria.

Syria lifts Internet bans. Syria is an enthusiastic banner of social media tools. Facebook and YouTube have been banned in that authoritarian country for four years. But now, that ban has been lifted.

We've written a lot about the Internet's role in American politics over the past six months as the US heads toward presidential elections next fall. How the web is playing a key role in this election cycle is a fascinating story, but the Internet is having a profound effect on politics in other parts of the world. We've focused on the US mainly because elections there are the most well publicized worldwide, and because the majority of RWW's lead writers hail from America. In Malaysia, though, web users have been able to draft three popular bloggers to stand for seats in the country's parliament.