Turkish man wears skirt for victimized women

ISTANBUL

The photo is taken from Facebook.

A Turkish man has donned a skirt in a central Istanbul square, to demonstrate in memory of slain 20-year-old student Özgecan Aslan, triggering social media calls for a massive “skirt-wearing” march over the weekend.

Erkan Doğan carried a placard reading “End harassment and rape. We are all Özgecan,” while wearing a skirt at the Altıyol Square in Istanbul’s Kadıköy neighborhood late on Feb. 16, local media reported.

“I wore a skirt to stress that the murder has got nothing to do with a skirt,” Doğan told online news platform Marjinal TV on Feb. 17, noting that “even some celebrities” attempted to justify such “crimes against humanity” with reference to what women wear.

“We should be against all kinds of violence and we should raise our children as individuals with respect for the opposite sex,” Doğan added.

The burned body of Özgecan Aslan, a 20-year-old female student who had been missing for two days, was discovered on Feb. 13 in a riverbed in the southern Turkish province of Mersin.

After Doğan’s individual protest, a “march of skirt-wearing men” has been called for Feb. 21 from Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square to the Tünel neighborhood. So far, over 1,500 people have said they will join the march on the planned event’s Facebook page.