diff --git a/gitlab.py b/gitlab.py
index a64fdcada..a7ec48747 100644
--- a/gitlab.py
+++ b/gitlab.py
@@ -89,6 +89,8 @@ def __init__(self, url, private_token=None,
         self.email = email
         self.password = password
         self.ssl_verify = ssl_verify
+        # Gitlab should handle UTF-8
+        self.gitlab_encoding = 'UTF-8'
 
     def auth(self):
         """Performs an authentication using either the private token, or the
@@ -302,7 +304,7 @@ def update(self, obj):
             if type(v) in (int, str, bool):
                 d[k] = str(v)
             elif type(v) == unicode:
-                d[k] = str(v.encode(sys.stdout.encoding, "replace"))
+                d[k] = str(v.encode(self.gitlab_encoding, "replace"))
 
         try:
             r = requests.put(url, d,
@@ -445,6 +447,8 @@ def Team(self, id=None, **kwargs):
         """
         return self._getListOrObject(Team, id, **kwargs)
 
+def _get_display_encoding():
+    return sys.stdout.encoding or sys.getdefaultencoding()
 
 class GitlabObject(object):
     _url = None
@@ -574,7 +578,7 @@ def _obj_to_str(obj):
             s = ", ".join([GitlabObject._obj_to_str(x) for x in obj])
             return "[ %s ]" % s
         elif isinstance(obj, unicode):
-            return obj.encode(sys.stdout.encoding, "replace")
+            return obj.encode(_get_display_encoding(), "replace")
         else:
             return str(obj)
 
@@ -585,8 +589,8 @@ def pretty_print(self, depth=0):
             if k == self.idAttr:
                 continue
             v = self.__dict__[k]
-            pretty_k = k.replace('_', '-').encode(sys.stdout.encoding,
-                                                  "replace")
+            pretty_k = k.replace('_', '-')
+            pretty_k = pretty_k.encode(_get_display_encoding(), "replace")
             if isinstance(v, GitlabObject):
                 if depth == 0:
                     print("%s:" % pretty_k)