diff --git a/notify_attract.py b/notify_attract.py
index db05b31..8d6159c 100755
--- a/notify_attract.py
+++ b/notify_attract.py
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ Example call:
 """
 
 import json
+import os
 import os.path
 import subprocess
 import sys
@@ -42,6 +43,9 @@ except KeyError:
 
 url = parse.urljoin(PILLAR_URL, '/attract/api/%s/subversion/log' % project_url)
 
+# Make sure that svnlook outputs UTF8. Without this, since we have an empty environment,
+# it defaults to ASCII, outputting {U+xxxx} instead of UTF8 characters.
+os.environ['LANG'] = 'en_US.utf8'
 
 def svnlook(subcmd):
     info = subprocess.check_output(['/usr/bin/svnlook', subcmd, svn_repo, '-r', str(svn_revision)])