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Mexico City –  Thousands of white-clad demonstrators took to the streets in a score of Mexican cities - including Cuernavaca, where poet Javier Sicilia's son was found dead 10 days ago - to protest the drug-related mayhem that has left more than 35,000 dead since 2006.

The brutal murders of 24-year-old Juan Francisco Sicilia and six other young people by suspected organized crime hit men have sparked a wave of indignation in Mexico, where people have been deeply moved by the composure and valor shown by the victim's father.

Calls for Wednesday's nationwide march for peace were led by the Mexican poet and columnist but the large turnout was also the result of a social-networking and media campaign with little precedent in Mexico.

The rallies coincided with an announcement by Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna that drug-related violence will begin to decline in 2014 or 2015, following a years-long crackdown against Mexico's numerous heavily armed and well-funded drug cartels.

Besides the central city of Cuernavaca, big demonstrations took place in Mexico City and in several cities hard hit by drug mob turf wars, including Monterrey, Ciudad Juarez, Guadalajara and Reynosa.

Dozens of people assembled in some urban centers (especially the most affected northern border cities) while a spokesman for the organizers said close to 20,000 demonstrators held a rally in Cuernavaca and 5,000 protested in the nation's capital.

"We're fed up with you politicians ... because in your fight for power you have torn apart the fabric of the nation," Sicilia said in an open letter to the country's political class and criminals.

"Because amid this poorly conceived, poorly executed, poorly led war, this war that has put the country in a state of emergency, you have been unable to forge the consensus the nation needs to find unity."

"As for you, the criminals, we're fed up with your violence, with your loss of honor, your cruelty and your senselessness," the poet said.

Mexico has been wracked by escalating drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon took office and militarized the struggle against the cartels in December 2006.

Some of the most notorious incidents include the massacre of 72 mostly Central American immigrants in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, apparently for refusing to work for a drug mob; the murder of 15 young people at a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez; the discovery of the bodies of 24 brick masons at a park in the central state of Mexico; and the kidnap-murder of 20 tourists in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

Ciudad Juarez has the dubious distinction of being Mexico's murder capital, accounting for 8,500 of the 35,000 deaths since Calderon deployed 45,000 soldiers and 20,000 Federal Police officers to drug-war hot spots shortly after his inauguration.

He says responsibility was handed over to federal forces due to rampant corruption within local and state law enforcement.

State and local police in Mexico are poorly paid and are often confronted with the choice known here as "plomo o plata" (lead or silver): accept a bribe for looking the other way or get killed for refusing.

Authorities say most of the victims of turf war battles and shootouts between police and criminals are members of the cartels and that innocent bystanders or cases of mistaken identity account for less than 5 percent of all fatalities.

Journalists and human rights activists have also been among the victims of Mexico's spiraling drug violence.