TURKEY’S opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) demanded the immediate release of its women and youth members today as it faces renewed threats of closure and rumours of imminent constitutional changes.

In a statement HDP said members of its women’s council had been detained as they made their way to a meeting in Ankara by a group calling themselves as “the invisibles,” the name used by a group who kidnapped and tortured Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) activist Gokhan Gunes earlier this month.

“Our friends, who were subjected to pressure, threats and blackmail during their detention, were warned to leave Ankara as soon as possible.

“The ruling bloc, who want to return to the enforced disappearances of the 1990s, must know that we will never, ever allow this,” a statement said.

It warned that members of the HDP youth assembly were subjected to kidnappings, with the Turkish state attempting to force them into becoming informants and threatening them with physical and sexual violence.

A number of the party’s youth and women’s committee members remain behind bars, having been taken into custody in raids across six cities last week.

HDP demanded their immediate release and warned the government to “give up this unlawful and dark path as soon as possible.”

The party is under intense pressure, with some 108 leading figures, including former co-chair’s Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas, under indictment on terror charges in the so-called “Kobane case,” referring to protests during the 2014 siege in which the north Syrian city was surrounded by Isis.

The case includes a string of allegations, including 37 cases of homicide and disrupting the unity and territorial integrity of the state. Prosecutors are seeking 38 life sentences without parole for the defendants.

Earlier this week President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the possibility of a new constitution if his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) can reach agreement with junior partners the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). 

The parties have been at loggerheads over EU membership — favoured by the AKP but opposed by the ultranationalist MHP. Its leader Devlet Bahceli has been pressing for constitutional changes, specifically the closure of the HDP.

Mr Erdogan’s recent overtures, following a cabinet meeting earlier this week, bring that one step closer to reality. 

“Work on a constitution is not something that can be done under the shadow of groups linked to the terrorist organisation (PKK), with people whose mental and emotional ties to their country are broken,” he said in reference to the HDP.

Some 20,000 HDP members and activists have been detained since 2016, with 10,000 of those jailed along with 200 elected officials and at least seven MPs.

The HDP is particularly vulnerable after the passing of the Law to Prevent the Financing and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction last December, an innocuous-sounding piece of legislation to ostensibly stop the funding of terrorism, but which in reality is designed to paralyse opposition.

The law allows the government to take control of and close down non-governmental organisations, charities and political organisations “associated with terrorism.”