This paper looks at Tunisian public order cases, with a particular focus on those cases that punished blasphemous acts in the wake of Tunisia’s Arab Spring (2011-present), reflecting a new anxiety about a ‘besieged’ sacred. In an unprecedented move, Tunisian prosecutors used public order articles from the penal code alongside the press code to pursue a series of blasphemous acts, ranging from the desecration of the Qur’an to the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Amidst significant post-Arab-Spring political changes, this preoccupation with the sacred found itself repeatedly supported by Tunisia’s almost unchanged legal system, including by judges who doled out sentences decried by human rights organizations. This anxiety about blasphemy in Tunisia was furthermore enshrined in the new 2014 Tunisian constitution in its so-called “blasphemy article,” which, while guaranteeing freedom of religion, adds a novel prohibition against “violating the sacred.” The article further declares the Tunisian state “the guarantor of religion…. and the protector of the sacred.” Using primary sources from the blasphemy cases in question, including citizen petitions, police reports, and court judgments, this paper examines the stories various agents tell in an attempt to name and locate the “crime” in question and to frame it within Tunisian law. It pays specific attention to the narratives at work, and the interpretations initially given in legal, non-legal or quasi-legal language that later find successful expression in laws that significantly predate the crimes under scrutiny. This paper thus looks at how old institutions - a virtually unchanged legally system, with the same actors using the same laws - have behaved in novel ways in the post-Arab Spring moment. It asks: how flexible of a tool may the law be? Why these prosecutions, and why now? In line with larger discussions within the Tunisian legal community, this project also wonders: when, in these particular cases, might other referents (like personal beliefs or religious law) fill in the ambiguities and the cracks in civil codes? This paper will allow one window onto the transformation of the Arab Spring country considered the most successful, raising questions about religious freedom, freedom of expression, and their limits.