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The government of Tunisia has closed all of the North African country’s universities and high schools indefinitely in the wake of massive student protests that left at least 14 dead at the hands of police.

Protests against the government elite and rising unemployment have been going on for weeks, but police violence escalated over the weekend as cops in several cities fired into crowds. Protests against that violence then led the government to announce the closures yesterday.

I’m still getting up to speed on this story. I’ll have more later.

Update | This CNN story quotes a Tunisian government source as saying that 19 protesters have been killed in the cities of Thala and Kasserine, with activists claiming the number is “closer to 50.” Amnesty International is cited saying that there were at least 23 deaths over the weekend, and more yesterday.

More background from the New York Times, which reports that the unrest began three weeks ago when an unemployed 26-year-old college graduate committed suicide by self-immolation after police confiscated a container of produce he was attempting to sell on the street. The Times additionally reports that “the riots are believed to have spread in part through social-media Web sites, and the Tunisian government reportedly directed Internet service providers to hack into the accounts of individual users.”

“In a speakout on sexual violence at Yale University, the most common theme was a new crime that has been largely ignored: when a woman stipulates a safe, or nonpenetrative, sexual encounter, but the man ejaculates into her against her will. AIDS education will not get very far until young men are taught how not to rape young women and how to eroticize trust and consent; and until young women are supported in the way they need to be redefining their desires.”

–Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth, 1991

Edward Woollard, the student who threw a fire extinguisher from the roof of Britain’s Conservative Party headquarters during raucous protests last November, was sentenced to 32 months’ imprisonment today.

Woollard, 18, was one of thousands of students and other activists who stormed the Millbank Tower building during the course of an anti-fee protest. Woollard threw the empty extinguisher from the roof of the building to the plaza below — his attorney said he aimed it at an unoccupied area, but police said they had to scurry away to avoid being hit.

The act was instantly condemned — not just by outside observers, but by protesters themselves, who immediately took up a chant of “stop throwing shit!”

In court, Woollard’s attorney described his client as “mortified … shocked, dazed, and horrified” by his action in its aftermath. Woollard turned himself in to police on November 15, after he was identified in the media, and pled guilty to the charges against him.

Woollard has been studying at a sixth form college this year, and had been hoping to be admitted to a university in the fall. He will serve at least half his sentence in an institution for youthful offenders.

Administrators and students at the University of Puerto Rico have been locked in struggle for weeks now over a planned tuition increase, with a student strike largely bringing operations to a halt before the Christmas break.

Officials have announced that they intend to re-open the university tomorrow, January 11, and student leaders have announced that they intend to resist that attempt.

Activists posted the above video on YouTube yesterday, articulating their vision for the university. They titled it “Once Uno Once” — “Eleven One Eleven” — in reference both to tomorrow’s date and to UPR’s structure: eleven campuses making up one university.

The video is in Spanish, but you can follow along with an English-language translation by clicking the Closed Caption button on the YouTube player. Here’s a transcript of that translation:

We want an autonomous self-governing university with the necessary resources and the power to decide over its destiny without political intervention from the government.

We want a university of outstanding quality, internationally recognized for its academic excellence.

We want a public university, seen as an investment and not an expense; as (a) social capital and not as a political arena of governors in power.

We want an equally accessible university for everyone: where youths of working class families can also have the opportunity of living the university experience. Where higher education can be a right and not a privilege.

We want a democratic university where administrative and academic decisions can be taken with real openness and transparency between the men and women who form the university’s community: students, workers and professors.

We want a university where solidarity and a compromise with our country prevails, where projects are in constant development to help us serve our most important responsibility: the fullest development of our society in all its knowledge dimensions.

We are many, but one.

Eleven campuses, one university of Puerto Rico.

One university for one country.

[Caption: Eleven One Eleven, 11.1.11. The strike continues. On January 11, everybody to the university!]

Who died yesterday in Tucson?

A trial-level federal judge, John Roll, on the bench for twenty years. A lawyer who gave up the much higher salaries of the private sector for the rewards of sitting behind a bench doing justice every day.

A congressional staffer, Gabe Zimmerman. Not just any congressional staffer, but a director of public outreach. The guy whose job it is to meet with constituents, wrangle local issues, set up events like the one he was attending yesterday morning.

A nine-year-old kid, Christina Taylor Green, just elected to her lets-pretend school council. A kid who jumped at the chance to tag along when a family friend announced she was going to meet her Congresswoman.

Three older people — Dorothy Murray and Dorwan Stoddard, both 76, and Phyllis Schneck, 79. We haven’t heard much about these three yet, but anyone who has spent any time around local politics could give you a guess about what they were doing there. Community events attract the elderly — folks with time to spare, opinions on issues, a sense of the importance of civic participation. Folks with a hunger to be engaged, to be involved, to listen and be heard.

These six shared something in common. They were all the kind of people who, finding themselves with some free time on a sunny Saturday morning, could think of no better way to spend it than to schlep out to a supermarket parking lot to wait on a line next to a folding table for a chance to hang out with an elected official for a few minutes.

And that’s a beautiful thing.