--- Python-2.7.1/Lib/httplib.py.ark	2011-04-21 15:32:23.765795879 +0200
+++ Python-2.7.1/Lib/httplib.py	2011-04-21 15:38:15.855787301 +0200
@@ -792,8 +792,13 @@ class HTTPConnection:
         # it will avoid performance problems caused by the interaction
         # between delayed ack and the Nagle algorithim.
         if isinstance(message_body, str):
-            msg += message_body
-            message_body = None
+            try:
+                msg += message_body
+                message_body = None
+            except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                # This could be binary data - we can treat it like
+                # something that isn't a str instance
+                pass
         self.send(msg)
         if message_body is not None:
             #message_body was not a string (i.e. it is a file) and