Non-governmental organizations and women's associations in the main Kurdish city Amed held a press conference condemning the brutal murder of 20-year-old university student Özgecan Aslan in Tarsus district of southern province of Mersin.

Demonstrators demanded that necessary legal arrangements for the punishment of those responsible be made and the perpetrators be subjected to severest punishment.

Reading the press release on behalf of the demonstrators, Lawyer Serpil Yiğit Erkuş, Coordinator of the Consultation and Advise Center for Women's Rights affiliated to Diyarbakır Bar Association, pointed out that with the murder of Özgecan the history of humanity has once again witnessed the extend of human savageness.

Erkuş called attention to the increasing rate of femicide in Turkey which -she said- was a consequence of gendered and male-dominant policies and laws as well as of the unsatisfactory punishments for the perpetrators.

Citing the statistics revealed by non-governmental organizations, Erkuş noted that 7,122 women were killed and 4,876 others were raped in the last ten years, while 20 women were killed in the last three months.

Erkuş urged officials to implement legal arrangements to end the male-dominant mentality and to ensure severest penal sanction for the perpetrators of femicide and violence against women.

Following the press conference, demonstrators hanged photographs of Özgecan Aslan, black ribbons and banners reading "Rape is a crime against humanity. Do not remain silent on the murder of Özgecan" on minibuses.

President of the Dağkapı Cooperative of Minibus Drivers, Askeri Kaya, also condemned the murder of Özgecan Aslan, voicing as minibus drivers solidarity with protests demanding justice for the young woman.

Hundreds of women also gathered in the province of Van to protest the murder of Özgecan which has caused countrywide reaction against the government's policies and practices that justify perpetrators of violence against women.

DBP Van provincial co-chair Hamiyet Şahin, HDP Van provincial co-chair Lawyer Derya Hayva, Van co-mayor Hatice Çoban, co-mayors of districts of Van and hundreds of women attended the press conference jointly organised by DBP, HDP, Peace Mothers, KJA, KESK, TUYAD-DER, Meya-Der, Göç-Der, Mal-Per, Rojin Women's Center, Democratic Islam Congress, IHD and DTK.

Activist Avesta Işık who read the press statement stressed that getting organised was the only way for women to manifest self-defense against the mentality which dooms them to isolation, slavery and exploitation. Işık pointed out that establishment of a joint resistance and solidarity of women was a must to fight violence against women.

People in Elazığ, Dersim and districts of Ovacık, Hozat, Mazgirt and Nazimiye, also took to the streets and staged marches today to protest the savage killing of the 20-year-old university student.

Holding the state and its policies responsible for the increasingly ongoing femicide across country, demonstrators demanded urgent justice for Özgecan and all other victims of male violence.