diff --git a/Branch.hs b/Branch.hs
index 9cdb096fd1..ab24e47525 100644
--- a/Branch.hs
+++ b/Branch.hs
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import System.Cmd.Utils
 import Data.Maybe
 import Data.List
 import System.IO
+import System.IO.Binary
 import qualified Data.ByteString.Char8 as B
 
 import Types.BranchState
@@ -287,7 +288,7 @@ setJournalFile file content = do
 		write g = do
 			let jfile = journalFile g file
 			let tmpfile = gitAnnexTmpDir g </> takeFileName jfile
-			writeFile tmpfile content
+			writeBinaryFile tmpfile content
 			renameFile tmpfile jfile
 
 {- Gets journalled content for a file in the branch. -}
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index a87a89860a..f84f8ab498 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@ git-annex (3.20110625) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
   * Sped back up fsck, copy --from, and other commands that often
     have to read a lot of information from the git-annex branch. Should
     now be nearly as fast as before the branch was introduced.
+  * Fix encoding of utf-8 etc when storing the description of repository
+    and other content.
 
  -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Sun, 26 Jun 2011 21:01:06 -0400