ANKARA, Turkey: At least 69 people who had signed an online petition urging Turkey to release some 120 journalists who were jailed following last summer’s failed coup have suddenly perished.

Amnesty International Deputy Secretary General, Stig Slutspurt, stated that “we began to suspect foul play when, in the course of a single day, a cartoonist was blown up while riding an elevator inside a downtown Ankara office building; a well-known artist died of radiation poisoning after drinking a Unicorn Frappuccino at an Istanbul Starbucks and a prominent critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was found dead under a pile of dumbbells inside a gym at the Bursa Holiday Inn.”

A spokesman for the Erdogan government flatly denied that the rash of mysterious deaths was part of a violent clamp down on the Turkish leader’s opponents. “Look, this government’s policy has always been to use democracy to destroy democracy. Killing is so messy. You ever try to wash out blood from an Armani suit? It’s a bitch. No, all our enemies have to worry about is being arrested in the middle of the night. Off the record, I’d rather drop dead while making love to my mistress than spend one night at Diyarbakır Prison.”