diff --git a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_utils_markup.py b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_utils_markup.py
index 01121133e..b466dce88 100644
--- a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_utils_markup.py
+++ b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/tests/test_utils_markup.py
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ from scrapy.utils.markup import unquote_markup
 class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_remove_entities(self):
+        # make sure it always return uncode
+        assert isinstance(remove_entities('no entities'), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_entities('Price: £100!'),  unicode)
+
         # regular conversions
         self.assertEqual(remove_entities(u'As low as £100!'),
                          u'As low as \xa3100!')
@@ -27,6 +31,9 @@ class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
 
     def test_replace_tags(self):
+        # make sure it always return uncode
+        assert isinstance(replace_tags('no entities'), unicode)
+
         self.assertEqual(replace_tags(u'This text contains <a>some tag</a>'),
                          u'This text contains some tag')
 
@@ -38,6 +45,10 @@ class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
                          u'Click here')
 
     def test_remove_comments(self):
+        # make sure it always return unicode
+        assert isinstance(remove_comments('without comments'), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_comments('<!-- with comments -->'), unicode)
+
         # text without comments 
         self.assertEqual(remove_comments(u'text without comments'), u'text without comments')
 
@@ -46,6 +57,13 @@ class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(remove_comments(u'Hello<!--World-->'),u'Hello')
 
     def test_remove_tags(self):
+        # make sure it always return unicode
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags('no tags'), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags('no tags', which_ones=('p',)), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags('<p>one tag</p>'), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags('<p>one tag</p>', which_ones=('p')), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags('<a>link</a>', which_ones=('b',)), unicode)
+
         # text without tags
         self.assertEqual(remove_tags(u'no tags'), u'no tags')
         self.assertEqual(remove_tags(u'no tags', which_ones=('p','b',)), u'no tags')
@@ -63,6 +81,12 @@ class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
                          u'<p align="center" class="one">texty</p>')
 
     def test_remove_tags_with_content(self):
+        # make sure it always return unicode
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags_with_content('no tags'), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags_with_content('no tags', which_ones=('p',)), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags_with_content('<p>one tag</p>', which_ones=('p',)), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_tags_with_content('<a>link</a>', which_ones=('b',)), unicode)
+
         # text without tags
         self.assertEqual(remove_tags_with_content(u'no tags'), u'no tags')
         self.assertEqual(remove_tags_with_content(u'no tags', which_ones=('p','b',)), u'no tags')
@@ -75,6 +99,10 @@ class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
                          u'<b>not will removed</b>')
 
     def test_remove_escape_chars(self):
+        # make sure it always return unicode
+        assert isinstance(remove_escape_chars('no ec'), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(remove_escape_chars('no ec', which_ones=('\n','\t',)), unicode)
+
         # text without escape chars
         self.assertEqual(remove_escape_chars(u'no ec'), u'no ec')
         self.assertEqual(remove_escape_chars(u'no ec', which_ones=('\n',)), u'no ec')
@@ -90,6 +118,10 @@ class UtilsMarkupTest(unittest.TestCase):
         sample_txt2 = u'<node2>blah&amp;blah<![CDATA[blahblahblah!&pound;]]>moreblah&lt;&gt;</node2>'
         sample_txt3 = u'something&pound;&amp;more<node3><![CDATA[things, stuff, and such]]>what&quot;ever</node3><node4'
 
+        # make sure it always return unicode
+        assert isinstance(unquote_markup(sample_txt1.encode('latin-1')), unicode)
+        assert isinstance(unquote_markup(sample_txt2), unicode)
+
         self.assertEqual(unquote_markup(sample_txt1), u"""<node1>hi, this is sample text with entities: & \xa9
 although this is inside a cdata! &amp; &quot;</node1>""")
 
diff --git a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py
index a27a72794..f115ed13f 100644
--- a/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py
+++ b/scrapy/trunk/scrapy/utils/markup.py
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ _tag_re = re.compile(r'<[a-zA-Z\/!].*?>', re.DOTALL)
 def remove_entities(text, keep=(), remove_illegal=True):
     """Remove entities from the given text.
 
-    'text' must be a unicode string.
+    'text' can be a unicode string or a regular string encoded as 'utf-8'
 
     If 'keep' is passed (with a list of entity names) those entities will
     be kept (they won't be removed).
@@ -45,24 +45,36 @@ def remove_entities(text, keep=(), remove_illegal=True):
             else:
                 return u'&%s;' % m.group(2)
 
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     return _ent_re.sub(convert_entity, text)
 
 def has_entities(text):
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     return bool(_ent_re.search(text))
 
 def replace_tags(text, token=''):
     """Replace all markup tags found in the given text by the given token. By
     default token is a null string so it just remove all tags.
 
-    'text' must be a unicode string.
+    'text' can be a unicode string or a regular string encoded as 'utf-8'
 
     Always returns a unicode string.
     """
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     return _tag_re.sub(token, text)
 
 
 def remove_comments(text):
     """ Remove HTML Comments. """
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     return re.sub('<!--.*?-->', u'', text, re.DOTALL)
       
 def remove_tags(text, which_ones=()):
@@ -71,6 +83,9 @@ def remove_tags(text, which_ones=()):
         which_ones -- is a tuple of which tags we want to remove.
                       if is empty remove all tags.
     """
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     if len(which_ones) > 0:
         tags = [ '<%s>|<%s .*?>|</%s>' % (tag,tag,tag) for tag in which_ones ]
         reg_exp_remove_tags = '|'.join(tags)
@@ -85,6 +100,9 @@ def remove_tags_with_content(text, which_ones=()):
         which_ones -- is a tuple of which tags with its content we want to remove.
                       if is empty do nothing.
     """
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     tags = [ '<%s.*?</%s>' % (tag,tag) for tag in which_ones ]
     re_tags_remove = re.compile('|'.join(tags), re.DOTALL)
     return re_tags_remove.sub(u'', text)
@@ -95,12 +113,15 @@ def remove_escape_chars(text, which_ones=('\n','\t','\r')):
         which_ones -- is a tuple of which escape chars we want to remove.
                       By default removes \n, \t, \r.
     """
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     re_escape_chars = re.compile('[%s]' % ''.join(which_ones))
     return re_escape_chars.sub(u'', text)
 
 def unquote_markup(text, keep=(), remove_illegal=True):
     """
-    This function receives markup as a text (always a unicode string) and does the following:
+    This function receives markup as a text (always a unicode string or a utf-8 encoded string) and does the following:
      - removes entities (except the ones in 'keep') from any part of it that it's not inside a CDATA
      - searches for CDATAs and extracts their text (if any) without modifying it.
      - removes the found CDATAs
@@ -118,6 +139,9 @@ def unquote_markup(text, keep=(), remove_illegal=True):
         fragments.append(txt[offset:])
         return fragments
 
+    if not isinstance(text, unicode):
+        text = text.decode('utf-8')
+
     ret_text = u''
     for fragment in _get_fragments(text, _cdata_re):
         if isinstance(fragment, basestring):