diff --git a/src/plugins/plugin_xep_0277.py b/src/plugins/plugin_xep_0277.py
index 58ff246b..7537bec9 100755
--- a/src/plugins/plugin_xep_0277.py
+++ b/src/plugins/plugin_xep_0277.py
@@ -218,13 +218,13 @@ class XEP_0277(object):
                             converted = yield synt.convert(data[attr], synt.getCurrentSyntax(profile), "XHTML")
                         else:  # clean the XHTML input
                             converted = yield synt.clean_xhtml(data[attr])
-                        elem = elems[key](u'<div xmlns="%s">%s</div>' % (NS_XHTML, converted))
+                        elem = elems[key]((u'<div xmlns="%s">%s</div>' % (NS_XHTML, converted)).encode('utf-8'))
                         elem.attrs['type'] = 'xhtml'
                         if hasattr(_entry, '%s_xhtml' % key):
                             raise exceptions.DataError(_("Can't have xhtml and rich content at the same time"))
                         setattr(_entry, '%s_xhtml' % key, elem)
                     else:  # raw text only needs to be escaped to get HTML-safe sequence
-                        elem = elems[key](escape(data[attr]))
+                        elem = elems[key](escape(data[attr]).encode('utf-8'))
                         elem.attrs['type'] = 'text'
                         setattr(_entry, key, elem)
             if not getattr(_entry, key).text: