In the wake of the brutal death of a 20 year-old female student named Ozgecan Aslan, Turkish men have taken to the streets wearing skirts in an act of protest.
Aslan died after she was assaulted by a bus driver and two others who were attempting to rape her. She was beaten, stabbed, and then finally dumped in a riverbed where her body was later found.
Three men were arrested in connection with her death: the bus driver, his father and a friend. Aslan, who was a psychology student, was kidnapped this Wednesday while she was on her way home. The driver allegedly tried to rape her and she reportedly used pepper spray to fight them off, but was then stabbed to death. She was also hit on the head with an iron pipe.
In a somewhat rare phenomenon for Turkey, the reaction of social media to the Aslan’s murder led to a massive outpouring on the streets.
Azerbaycan’da Erkek,Özgecan Öldürülmesini Protesto Etmek İçin Facebook’ta #ozgecanicinminietekgiy Kampanyası Başlattı pic.twitter.com/jF1rBQJyOk
— BerilDeniz (@BerilDeniz77) February 18, 2015
From the Independent:
Female Turkish social media users first tweeted out under the hashtag #sendeanlat – translated roughly as ‘tell your story’ – before men in neighbouring Azerbaijan began tweeting out images of themselves wearing skirts under the hashtag #ozgecanicinminietekgiy on Wednesday.
Translated roughly as ‘wear a miniskirt for Ozegan’, the tweet spread from Azerbaijan – where many understand Turkish – and went global.
As of this morning, thousands have tweeted using [the] hashtag – with many sharing photos of themselves – and many more have tweeted out their support, including western celebrities such as Emma Watson who brought more publicity to the campaign.
Images courtesy of the Independent.
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