JINHA

MERSIN / ANKARA –Women took to the streets in Mersin and Ankara to condemn the rape and murder of 20-year-old ÖzgecanAslan of Mersin province, in spite of police attempts to stop them.

In Mersin, thousands of women gathered in front of the office of the TOK bus company, whose driver SuphiAltındöken raped Özgecan and burned her to death along with two others after she boarded his bus one evening last week. The crowd of thousands, organized over social media,chanted in Kurdish "jin, jîyan, azadî" (woman, life, freedom) and in Turkish "we're not in mourning, we're in rebellion." In spite of at least ten police attempts to shut down the march, the marchersset out from the bus garage to Özgecan's house.

As the march moved towardsKiretmithane Neighborhood, the location of the tent where Özgecan's grieving family is receiving condolences, the crowds dismantled a police barricade set up outside the State Hospital. Marcherscontinued down GMK Boulevard. There, police climbed on top of their riot control vehicles and attempted to order women to the front of the crowd and men to the back. They also alleged that there were provocateurs among the protestors.

The marchers later learned that the severe police intervention was ordered in part because besieged Family and Social Policies Minister, who has been called on repeatedly to resign over the last few days, was visiting the Kiremithane tent.

In Ankara, women of the People's Liberation Party also took to the streets. Speaker KıvılcımZelalKuşçu denounced the capitalist patriarchal system that reduces women to objects for men's fulfillment, calling the crimes against Özgecan "medieval." The crime, Kıvılcım said, was in league with the 1993 massacre ofAlawitesin the Madımak Hotel, burned to the ground in a hate crime.

"There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity," said Kıvılcım, "and one day we will read off these crimes from the dark book where they are written and punish their perpetrators one by one."