Thousands of demonstrators in Turkey took to the streets this weekend to protest the brutal murder of 20-year-old university student Özgecan Aslan, who was killed while resisting rape. Women and high school students wore black in memory of Aslan and boycotted their lessons today as Turkish activists issued a rallying call against the endemic levels of violence against women in the country.

Aslan was last seen catching a minibus on February 11 in the city of Mersin. Her burnt body was discovered by police in a riverbed on Friday. The driver of the minibus allegedly attempted to rape her. Aslan was stabbed and clubbed to death when she tried to fight him off with pepper spray.

According to reports, the driver later enlisted his father and a friend to help him dispose of her body. Three suspects were arrested by police late on Friday. 

The horrific murder has prompted outrage in Turkey. The only female cabinet minister in the country, Aysenur Islam, has called for the reinstatement of the death penalty in response to the crime. "Not as a minister, but as a mother and woman, I think punishment for such crimes can be the death sentence... We can put it on our agenda," she was quoted as saying by Turkish news agency Anatolia.

Demonstrations have been staged across the country, including Istanbul, Ankara and Aslan's hometown of Mersin. Protesters held up photographs of Aslan, saying that enough was enough. Middle East Eye reports that five women were arrested in Taksim Square, the site of 2013 anti-government protests, after unfurling a banner with the words "Özgecan Aslan is our uprising".

Thousands of women have taken to Twitter to share their own stories of harassment and assault. More than 450,000 tweets with the hashtag #sendeanlat ("you tell your story too") have been posted in the last few days.

Popular Turkish actress Beren Saat spoke out over the abuse she had received since her school years to present day. She listed in a tweet: "All the cat-calls at me while I was returning home from school with a school uniform skirt... my accelerated steps in the dark while returning home from preparatory school... my fight with a drunk broadcasting manager who grabbed my butt during the TV channel’s celebration night..."

Others have posted images of themselves in black under the tag #Ozgecanicinsiyahgiy ("wear black for Ozgecan"), while high school students in black boycotted their lessons in solidarity with Aslan, a psychology student. 

Women all over Turkey have linked the killing to the country's institutionalised sexism and soaring levels of sexual assault. In 2011, the Hurriyet Daily News claimed that murder had become "a fact of life" for Turkish women. Between 2002 and 2009, the number of women killed soared by 1,400 per cent. 

In November, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made headlines when he claimed that women could not be treated equally to men "because it goes against the laws of nature".

"Our religion (Islam) has defined a position for women: motherhood,” Erdoğan said at an Istanbul summit on (ironically) women and justice. "Some people can understand this, while others can’t. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don’t accept the concept of motherhood."

Last year, deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc argued that women should not laugh in public because "chastity is so important", prompting Turkish women to flood social media with thousands of images of them smiling and giggling at his expense.

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