Index on Censorship and the Tunisian Islamist Ennahda movement never shared much more than a city, and for a while, a common foe. We both have a London base, and both of us shared the hostility of the former Ben Ali regime in Tunis.

Tunisia votes on Sunday in its first ever free elections, the first vote of the Arab spring. But the mood of optimism is tempered with deep unease that, nine months after the revolution which ousted the dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country is still dominated by the corrupt and brutal vestiges of the old regime.

Lover, cartographer, philologist. In that order Tunisian blogger Slim Amamou says: 'Arriving at the polling station to find men and women separated will influence your vote. ISIE's polling station managers are in charge of the queue. Report the problem.' Some tweeters have been encouraging voters to ignore attempts to separate the queues.

For years they faced one of the most sophisticated cyber-censorship regimes in the world, hacked, shut down, trailed by secret police, savagely beaten, burgled and jailed. But Tunisian bloggers played a key role in spreading ideas, information and accounts of brutality in the run up to the revolution that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.