caption death_date death_place birth_place imagesize nationality birth_date article_title name occupation death_cause
tarak mekki in a 2010 vlog . 31 december 2012 hammamet tunis , tunisia 200px tunisian 27 june 1958 tarak mekki
 tarak mekki political figure cardiac arrest
tarak mekki

tarak mekki -lrb- طارق المكي 27 june 1958 -- 31 december 2012 -rrb- was a tunisian businessman and political figure .
he declared himself as an opponent to the president zine el abidine ben ali and a candidate to his succession .
mekki was one of the few political opponents calling for an immediate end to the ben ali regime , and his prosecution for corruption and torture .
mekki was born in tunis .
he embraced many of tunisia 's first president habib bourguiba 's foreign policies which called for a pragmatic solution to the israeli-palestinian conflict and closer ties with western countries .
he presented himself as moderate and quickly distanced himself from other political opponents including islamists .
after june 12 , 2007 , mekki posted his speeches online revealing the foundation of his presidential programme .
he called for the birth of a `` second tunisian republic '' where rights would be guaranteed to all tunisians .
according to him , this was the only alternative to the then existing regime .
mekki claimed that women had been wearing veils as a mean of silent political protests rather than true religious conviction .
mekki proposed to fight the `` real '' roots of islamic terrorism and blamed president ben ali 's policies for the rise of extremists .
this could also just have been a ploy to gain support in the west , as ben ali had similarly proclaimed to be fighting terrorism .
mekki 's team produced a series of political comic sketches called `` mille et une nuits '' -lrb- engl .
`` one thousand and one nights or elf leila w leila '' -rrb- in which he ridiculed president zine el-abidine ben ali , his wife leila trabelsi-ben ali , and the trabelsi family - the name of the sketches themselves a jab at the president 's wife .
from june 8 , 2008 , his speeches were broadcast online on various websites including youtube and dailymotion as well as via satellite on nilesat every monday evening in tunisia .
mekki died , aged 54 , in hammamet .
